ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF PLANTS. 445 



looking plant, bearing rough misshapen flowers ; but there 

 were the distinct features of extraordinary vigour, and the 

 red leaf-stalk. The first year's sowing from this plant 

 produced more variation than improvement ; the second 

 more improvement than variation ; and now, in the fourth 

 year, the characters above described seem fixed, for all the 

 seedlings raised from a choice pod of seed have bloomed so 

 nearly alike in colour, size, form, and habit, that the 

 variation may be fairly pronounced improved and fixed. 



Thus far I have confined my remarks to the variation 

 of plants from seed which appear to arise spontaneously, 

 and are of everyday occurrence. But there are other 

 variations occasionally taking place, which are known to 

 cultivators under the name of " sports." Sports are 

 variations from the leaf-bud rather than from seed, and 

 I class them under " selection" because in their case man 

 does not intentionally step in with the view of giving a 

 turn to the workings of Nature. Cultivation may, and in 

 many cases probably does, induce " sports," but cultiva- 

 tion is not deliberately pursued with that object. As an 

 example of these we may instance the well-known case of 

 the Nectarine, which was a sport from the Peach that is, 

 a branch of a Peach tree produced the smooth-skinned 

 and otherwise different fruit known as the Nectarine. My 

 first efforts at improving the Rose were made in 1843, 

 and were induced by discovering a sport. I observed a 

 branch and flower of the Bourbon Rose Proserpine, then 

 recently introduced, of extraordinary vigour ; the flowers 

 were larger and somewhat lighter in colour than in the 

 original ; the leaves were of a lighter green, more obtuse, 

 and destitute of the customary red nerves and red colour- 

 ing round their circumference. This, which I believe I am 

 right in speaking of as a sport, was nevertheless not a very 

 marked example of this tendency. It was cultivated 

 separately and fixed, but did not depart sufficiently from 

 the original to be thought worthy of a new name, and was 

 consequently sold as a superior variety of the Rose 



