THE WHITE BLACKBERRY 839 



made some remarkable experiments in plant 

 breeding about half a century ago, and who died 

 in 1884, but whose work remained quite unknown 

 until his obscure publications were rediscovered 

 by Professor Hugo de Vries and two other con- 

 temporary workers, and made known to the 

 world about the year 1900. Since then a very 

 large part of the attention of the biological world 

 has been devoted to the further examination of 

 what has come to be spoken of as Mendelian prin- 

 ciples. 



And, as is usual in such cases, unwarranted 

 expectations have been aroused in some quarters 

 as to the real import and meaning of the new 

 point of view ; also a good deal of misunderstand- 

 ing as to the application of the so-called Men- 

 delian laws of heredity to the work of the prac- 

 tical plant developer. 



In view of the latter fact it is well to bear in 

 mind that such experiments in plant breeding as 

 those through which I developed the white black- 

 berry and hundreds of others were made long 

 before anything was known of Mendel and his 

 experiments, and at a time when the conceptions 

 now associated with Mendelism were absolutely 

 unknown to any person in the world. It is well 

 to emphasize this fact for two reasons: first, as 

 showing that practical breeding, resulting in the 



