LUTHER BURBANK 



matter of common observation that the offspring 

 in such a case will have dark eyes. 



But it has also been observed that the blue 

 eyes of one of the parents may reappear in the 

 second generation. 



The tendency to blue eyes was entirely subordi- 

 nated or submerged in one generation, yet it was 

 by no means eliminated, as its reappearance in the 

 next generation clearly proves. 



Similar instances without number may be 

 studied from our plant experiments; for example, 

 the case of the white blackberry. If flowers of 

 this kind are fructified with pollen from flowers 

 of a blackberry of the usual color, the hybrid 

 progeny of the first generation will all bear black 

 fruit. 



The quality of blackness has proved prepotent 

 or dominant, and the opposed quality of whiteness 

 has been totally subordinated so far as this 

 generation is concerned. 



But if these black hybrid blackberries are 

 cross-fertilized, from the seed thus produced there 

 will spring a generation of brambles, some mem- 

 bers of which will in due season produce white 

 fruit precisely like that of the maternal ancestor. 



Such, it will be recalled, was indeed the 

 experience in the development of my new race 

 of white blackberries. 



[24] 



