136 LUTHER BUKBANK 



indication of large fine fruit. This is Jfre practi- 

 cal part of the work not the theoretical. 



So it may quite conceivably happen that the 

 experimenter, using his best endeavors to make 

 right selection, picks out for preservation, among 

 the ten or twelve chosen out of the thousands, 

 individuals that, though they have only large- 

 fruited ancestors in the two generations back of 

 them, yet themselves are pure recessives (bb) 

 as regards that quality, bearing no factor of large 

 fruit whatever. 



And in that event the experimenter will be con- 

 fronted, after another two-year or three-year in- 

 terval of waiting, with an array of fruit, borne on 

 the branches of his long-nurtured and carefully 

 selected cions, not a single specimen of which is 

 other than insignificant in size. 



Other good qualities the fruit may have. But 

 in the essential quality that we are keeping under 

 consideration it is utterly lacking. In the matter 

 of size it reverts to the recessive member of its 

 great-grandparental ancestry. And so its tell- 

 tale progeny, hanging there among the luscious 

 fruit of surrounding branches (of other line- 

 age), are like the black sheep in a patrician 

 family. 



Not an enheartening experiment, thus far, for 

 the would-be developer of a colossal cherry. 



