42 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



that one might have been developed from another by a very 

 few years' selection, — indeed, it is known that some of the 

 164 lots counted were so developed. 



In a recent trial of garden beets, samples bought under 

 2 14 different names from the most careful growers of Europe, 

 where the most of the garden beet seed used in this country 

 is grown, and from the most reliable American seedsmen, 

 were carefully studied, and it was found that every beet in 

 the trial could be classed under some one of 20 or 25 distinct 

 types; and this could be done so that. the beets so thrown to- 

 gether under each type would be more uniformly of that 

 type and show less variation than those of most of the 214 

 samples of the trial. Indeed, (hero were none of the samples 

 in which there was not from 5 to 10 per cent of the roots 

 which were more or less distinctly of a different type from 

 the rest, and in many of them there Avere 2 to 5 different 

 types in so nearly equal numbers that it was difficult to de- 

 cide what was the exact type the lot was supposed to be com- 

 posed of. Again, in some cases seed of the same name was 

 secured from as many as 12 different sources, and it was 

 found not only that the individual samples contained differ- 

 ent types, but in such different proportions that it was diffi- 

 cult to decide which type the name should stand for, the 

 majority of the roots in some lots being quite different in 

 character from the majority of the roots in others. Often 

 the only difference between two lots sold under different and 

 quite distinct names would be that, though the dominant type 

 in each would be the same, the proportion of that type would 

 be greater in one than in the other; or, in other words, one 

 was simply a purer and better stock of what was really the 

 same variety as the other. 



The varietal names used for different and even for identi- 

 cal types change with time. In 1597 Gerard described 8 

 distinct sorts of lettuce as common at that time in English 

 gardens. His descriptions of each of these correspond with 

 some sort still in cultivation, though not under the same name 

 by which it was known to him. A. Phillips states that in 

 1S22 some 30 varieties were cultivated in the vicinity of 

 London. Goff, in report of New York Experiment Station 



