ON THE ALMOND 



on the offspring. The parents were a shade more 

 widely removed from each other genetically than 

 were, for example, the plum and the apricot or 

 the Persian and California walnuts. 



Conceivably this fact, and not the mixed ances- 

 try of either parent, may have accounted for the 

 diversity of form of the progeny. 



As the plum-almond hybrids were sterile, it is 

 obvious that the experiments through which I had 

 hoped to develop new varieties and perhaps new 

 species of fruits could go no further in this direc- 

 tion. It is of course possible that individual plums 

 and almonds or different varieties of the two races 

 might be found that would combine to produce 

 fertile offspring. This supposition finds support 



the fact that my earliest crosses between the 

 plum and the apricot were also sterile; whereas 

 later ones produced the fertile plumcot, as the 

 reader is aware. 



So it is obviously worth while to continue the 

 experiments of hybridizing the plum and the 

 almond, and there is every reason to hope that 

 interesting and valuable results may be attained. 



My own experiments, however, although they 

 have been repeated occasionally and have never 

 been quite lost sight of during the twenty-five years 

 that have intervened since the first tests were 

 tade, have produced only the anomalous results 



[71] 



