14 ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE 



plants in succeeding generations will bear red blossoms and 

 some white blossoms. In this, as in all inheritance, two 

 problems are involved: 



(1) How the parent plant can impress its character 

 on the gametes. 



(2) How the uniting gametes impress their characters 

 on the new individual. 



How can the minute pollen grain of the pea carry the 

 white color, the size of the vine, the shape of the pea, 

 the earliness of the variety, and the innumerable other 

 characters of the parent plant? How does this parent 

 plant impress these characters on the pollen grain? These 

 are questions about which there are many theories, but 

 no one knows the answer. 



When two gametes unite to form a new individual, 

 how do the characters represented by each of them unite? 

 If one represents a red and one a white blossom, the new 

 plant cannot be both red and white, what color will 

 it be? To these questions we now have partial answers. 



18. Mendel's Law. 1 Mendel crossed a number of plants 

 and studied the inheritance of contrasting characters in 

 the hybrids. Only two of his experiments with peas are 

 here mentioned. Two of the several characteristics which 



1 Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian monk, Abbot of Brunn. He 

 was born in 1822, and died in 1884. In the garden of his cloister he con- 

 ducted many experiments, particularly with peas. He published a few papers 

 from 1853 to 1865, but they attracted little attention and were soon for- 

 gotten. But in 1900 they were discovered. Since then his work has been 

 the most compelling force in plant and animal improvement. Nearly every 

 experiment station has gone to work to improve plants, and to study the 

 principles on which this improvement depends. 



His work differed from that of most students, in that he used large 

 numbers, and so secured averages. When the laws of chance apply, no con- 

 clusions are of any value unless large numbers are used. One might draw 

 five yellow kernels of corn in succession from a dish containing half 

 white. His conclusions would be entirely wrong. Only when he draws a 

 large number of times, will he be sure to have approximately equal numbers 

 of each. 



