GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 29 



and like would invariably produce like so long 

 as the conditions of life remained the same. 

 The same principle holds true in the reproduc- 

 tion of vegetable life. An absolutely pure seed 

 reproduces its kind, but when cross-fertilization 

 has once taken place the result is uncertain. 

 If the flower of the Baldwin apple tree be fer- 

 tilized by the pollen of a Winesap the seed from 

 this union will produce neither the one nor the 

 other. It will be an apple because both of its 

 parents were apples; but as they were of differ- 

 ent varieties, or forms, or characters, so the 

 produce will have a character of its own, differ- 

 ing from both of its ancestors. And even if the 

 stigma of the Baldwin be fertilized by pollen of 

 its own kind the result is uncertain, because 

 the parent is itself the result of cross-fertiliza- 

 tion. The application of this principle to the 

 crossing of different races of domestic animals 

 is evident, and I shall have occasion to refer to 

 it hereafter. 



But, notwithstanding the uniformity of which 

 I have spoken, in the produce of absolutely pure 

 or unmixed races there arises occasionally what 

 is termed an accidental variation from the es- 

 tablished type a sport, as it is frequently called. 

 The color of the American deer is of a fixed 

 type, and a departure from uniformity in this 

 particular is very rare yet a white deer is 

 occasionally found and so of other animals in 



