ON NEW PLUMS AND PRUNES 



That the germ plasm of a single tree may thus 

 contain the potentialities of a hundred different 

 types of future fruit, is a mystery to which we 

 have referred, but to which we may recur without 

 apology. 



When we further reflect that the branch in 

 question, which carries this amazing heritage, 

 perhaps grew from a single pea-sized bud inserted 

 on the trunk a few seasons ago; and that the tiny 

 bud in question must have contained, pre-de- 

 termined within its seemingly insignificant sub- 

 stance, all the potentialities that will be revealed 

 in all the different "varieties" of its progeny, the 

 mystery becomes still deeper if comparison be 

 permitted between the various aspects of a subject 

 every phase of which lies almost beyond the 

 bounds of human comprehension. 



But even though we cannot hope fully to 

 understand, much less to explain, the mysteries of 

 heredity of which the case of the bud furnishes a 

 familiar yet striking example, we cannot help 

 pondering on the matter. And as nowadays we 

 are accustomed to associate function with struc- 

 ture everywhere in nature, seeking a physical basis 

 for the observed phenomena associated with life 

 processes, it is natural that here as elsewhere at- 

 tempts should have been made to visualize the 

 conditions that obtain in the germ plasm of the 



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