86 EXPERBIEXT STATION. [Jan. 



Ill the fall of .190l> and .sultsccjticut years a raiidoiu selection of 

 one plant from each of the groups of lUO'J has beeii made, thus 

 keeping the uumber of plants fairly constant. It will be seen 

 that Excelsior I. and Variety " C " are made up of the descend- 

 ants of 10 plants selected from commercial seed. The reason 

 for sei)aratiiig one of the 10, '' C ", is that it has proved to be a 

 distinct variety, being larger, more productive and a week or 

 ten days later than the other 9. This difference was not sus- 

 pected when the original plant was selected. Between these 9 

 lines of descent there are no evident diiTerences, though some 

 are shown later in this paper to be present. 



With these explanations in mind we may proceed to a dis- 

 cussion of the figures shown in Table I. The following c-onclu- 

 sions seem warranted : — 



1. With three exceptions the coefficients are very small, many 

 are insignificant and some are even negative. 



2. They are very irregular both in the same groups in dif- 

 ferent years and in different groups in the same year. 



3. They are generally lower for pods per vine than for vine 

 length. 



4. They are on the whole lower for Variety " C " than for 

 the other groups. 



It will be remembered that Variety " C " comprises the de- 

 scendants from 1 of 10 jilants selected from a lot of Excelsior 

 in 1907, the progeny of the other 9 being brought together to 

 form the g^i'ou]) Excelsior I. We have the figures for these 9 

 lines taken separately, and we may iiupiire if they, like \'a- 

 riety " C ", are insignificant or nearly so. They are given in 

 Table II. 



