THE CHERRY 143 



in successive generations, that the four hundred 

 families of cherries of my patrician colony have 

 been developed. No two among the four hundred 

 show precisely the same combination of qualities, 

 but all of them show one combination or another 

 of good qualities. 



Those that reverted to undesirable ancestral 

 traits have been weeded out. 



And this is equivalent to saying that the se- 

 lected varieties of cherries represent a fixed stock 

 as regards many of their good qualities. We can- 

 not expect that any given one will reproduce its 

 kind precisely from the seed, for reasons that 

 have been fully explained. But we can expect 

 that there will be a goodly proportion among any 

 company of seedlings from this stock that would 

 produce fruit of excellent quality. In a word, 

 then, these perfected varieties of cherries repre- 

 sent stock that is immediately available for the 

 purposes of further experimentation. 



What they have accomplished is an augury of 

 still better things that may be expected of their 

 descendants. 



And so the practical question arises as to what, 

 specifically, are the qualities that the improved 

 cherry still lacks; and as to what particular ex- 

 periments in hybridizing should be undertaken to 

 remedv the defects. 



