PLAXXIXG A XEW PLAXT 199 



quite different from those that had been set by 

 theoretical botanists and compilers. 



Aid from Galtox's Law 



In attempting to estimate the possibility of 

 improvement in a given form of plant life, it is 

 of value to recall the formula put forward by the 

 late Sir Francis Galton; a formula often spoken 

 of as Galton's law. 



According to this estimate, the hereditary 

 traits of any given organism are so intermingled 

 that we may assume as a general rule that off- 

 spring of a given generation will inherit about 

 half their tangible traits from their parents, one 

 quarter from their grandparents, one-eighth 

 from their great-grandparents, and so on in de- 

 creasing scale from each earlier generation. 



Stated otherwise, according to this rule, we 

 should be able by obsei'vation of the parents of 

 any given organism, to see presented half of the 

 traits of the offspring, but we may expect that 

 the offspring will manifest, as the other half 

 of their inheritance, traits that have come to 

 them through the process of reversion or ata- 

 vism, from remote generations of the ancestral 

 strain. 



And this obviously gives opportunity for the 

 appearance of an enormous variety of traits in 



