MUTATIONS 



Is not this a natural mutation in the truest sense of the term ? 

 If not, then it is merely a question of terminology and definition. 

 The fact remains that it arose suddenly, a distinct type, and 

 remains true with no characteristics of a hybrid. We need a term 

 for this sort of thing which is occasionally occurring everywhere 

 in nature, in our gardens and in our herds, and I know of none 

 better then the one already in use mutation. 



The strawberry. 1 The wild strawberry grew everywhere in 

 northern North America. There were not only many distinct 

 types of the red, but, like the native raspberry and the blackberry, 

 it had everywhere its albino race. Good progress had been made 

 in the cultivation of the native strawberries, and without doubt 

 good varieties would in time have developed ; but the introduction 

 of the Chilean berry (the parent of most present varieties) seems 

 to have put a stop to this. The most promising of all native 

 strains was the Fragaria Chiloensis, a native to Oregon and the 

 Pacific coast ; but, as Bailey observes, " the garden progeny of 

 its South American branch is already so good that there is little 

 reason for returning to the wild for a new start." Here is a curi- 

 ous instance of the successive supplanting of varieties. European 

 sorts were vanquished by developments of New England natives. 

 Then the wild type of Oregon came into the struggle and 

 threatened to supplant them both, for it was full of promise. 

 But its prosperity was its own defeat, for its own Chilean 

 brother has now supplanted everything in that it is the stock 

 which is furnishing our improved varieties. Any student of this 

 subject will recognize the comparative readiness with which these 

 new types spring up. 



The blackberry. 2 The blackberry grows wild both in America 

 and in Europe, but is said to be cultivated only in North America. 

 It is not more than fifty years since improved varieties were 

 introduced, and its real cultivation dates* only from about 1875. 



There are two principal types of the wild blackberry growing 

 in the northern United States: (i) the "high bush," long and 

 luscious, loving the shade, represented in its cultivated types, 

 according to Bailey, by the Taylor and the Ancient Briton; 



1 L. H. Bailey, Evolution of our Native Fruits, pp. 424-432. 



2 Ibid. pp. 298-330. 



