ON THE TOMATO 



ovules of plants with chemicals, including radium, 

 have been made by several experimental botanists, 

 notably by Dr. D. T. MacDougal, of the Desert 

 Laboratory at Tucson, Arizona, and by Prof. C. S. 

 Gager. Prof. MacDougal's evening primroses, 

 grown from seeds that were treated wdth chem- 

 icals while in embryo, sometimes differ markedly 

 from other plants of the species. 



Prof. T. H. Morgan has made similar experi- 

 ments with the eggs of a fly, treating them with 

 radium, and thus producing individuals strikingly 

 different from their parents. 



These experiments, then, although they mark 

 merely the beginning of a new line of research, 

 are interesting in their suggestiveness. And it 

 occurs to me that the case of the nineteen-year-old 

 tomato seeds may have a bearing on the same 

 subject. 



It would be well worth while to conduct a 

 systematic line of experiments in which seed of a 

 fixed species is stored in large quantity, and a 

 certain proportion planted each year, careful 

 record being made of the characteristics of the 

 successive groups of plants, with an eye to any 

 modifications that may occur when the seed 

 approaches the limit of the term through which it 

 can maintain vitality under the conditions given it. 



It is said that there are records of wheat 



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