NEW PLUMS AND PRUNES 143 



It has been pointed out that you need not 

 hybridize the orchard fruits in order to get new 

 varieties. The seed of almost any plum tree, for 

 example, will give you seedlings aplenty that 

 are different from the parent tree. 



That a single variety may thus contain the 

 potentialities of a hundred different types of 

 future fruit is a mystery to which we have 

 referred, but to which we may recur without 

 apology. 



When we further reflect that the branch in 

 question, which carries this amazing heritage, 

 perhaps grew from a single pea-sized bud in- 

 serted on the trunk a few seasons ago; and that 

 the tiny bud in question must have contained, 

 predetermined within its apparently insignificant 

 substance, all the potentialities that will be re- 

 vealed in all the different "varieties" of its 

 progeny, the mystery becomes still deeper if 

 comparison be permitted between the various 

 aspects of a subject every phase of which 

 lies almost beyond the bounds of human 

 comprehension. 



But even though we cannot hope fully to 

 understand, much less to explain, the mysteries 

 of heredity of which the case of the bud fur- 

 nishes a familiar yet striking example, we can 

 not help pondering on the matter. And nowa- 



