ON SPECIFIC NEEDS 



he can modify the core or stone that lies at its 

 center. 



Yet from man's standpoint this inevitable cen- 

 tral structure, forming the heart of every orchard 

 fruit, is a conspicuous detriment. And it is alto- 

 gether desirable that fruits should be developed 

 in which the stony or fibrous covering of the seed 

 is eliminated, or in which the substance of the 

 seed itself has been substituted by juicy tissues. 



Everyone knows that this much desired modifi- 

 cation has been effected, or all but effected, in the 

 case of the so-called navel orange. An accidentally 

 discovered mutant, doubtless a pathological speci- 

 men, was seized on by some keen-eyed observer, 

 and a race of seedless oranges was developed by 

 selection, and widely disseminated by grafting. 

 Also there are seedless grapes. 



The reader will recall the long series of experi- 

 ments through which I was enabled, by taking 

 advantage of a similar malformation in a wild 

 European plum, to develop by hybridization and 

 selective breeding a race of stoneless plums. 



Everyone knows, also, that there comes to us 

 from the tropics a familiar fruit, the banana, that 

 is seedless; although perhaps it is not so well 

 known that this fruit has lost its seed through 

 being propagated for long generations by division. 

 The precise steps through which this development 



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