428 EXPERIMENTS WITH PLANTS 



and the Opium Poppy (the two common garden sorts), 

 one can trace clearly the influence of the parents and 

 see how their characters combine to produce a great 

 diversity of forms. These leaves I took from plants 

 growing together in the same bed in Mr. Burbank's 

 garden. 



Study the hybrids which are to be found in our 

 gardens, especially the Pansies, Cannas, etc., and see 

 whether they are variable. These, it should be remem- 

 bered, have their variability reduced as much as 

 possible by "fixing" before they are put on the 

 market. 



Mr. Burbank's experience with Beans illustrates 

 how the tendency to vary causes practical difficulties. 

 On crossing the Cranberry Bean (which has red pods 

 and white beans) with the Horticultural Pole Bean 

 (which has red pods striped with white and red- and- 

 white beans), a single seed was obtained: this was 

 planted, and produced a plant having pods of mixed 

 character but with all the beans black. When these 

 were planted, an astonishing variety of plants appeared: 

 some were Pole Beans running up twenty feet, others 

 were Bush Beans; some spread out on the ground 

 but a few inches in height; these latter in some 

 cases produced pods taller than themselves. The 

 variety of pods was bewildering, while the beans 

 themselves represented in size, shape, color and mark- 

 ings almost every known sort. Professor Bailey 



