VARIETIES OF WHEAT. 



peculiarities of a vegetable growth are transmitted from 

 1 one generation to another ; that is, plant characters are 

 hereditary. There are certain characteristics of every species 

 which are produced in generation after generation of the plant, 

 while frequently peculiarities will be possessed by an offspring 

 which were not found in the parent plant. Occasionally these 

 distinctive peculiarities or characters will belong only to the in- 

 dividual plant, while in other cases they will be produced in 

 their descendants, and become hereditary. When a new pro- 

 perty or character is transmitted by inheritance to new gen- 

 erations, so as even frequently to become as constant as the 

 primative form, we have what is known as a new variety. 

 Varieties are constant forms of new characteristics. 



There is a great difference in plants in their tendency to 

 produce varieties. Some plants seem to have no disposition to 

 variation, but are distinguished by the consistency of their 

 characters, as, for example, rye, which has as yet produced no 

 hereditary variety, notwithstanding long cultivation, while, on 

 the other hand, some plants seem to have the greatest pro- 

 clivity for change. The same parent plant may produce numer- 

 ous varieties ; as, for instance, our common garden dahlia, with 

 its hundreds of different forms, have all come from the sim- 

 ple yellow blossom, which was cultivated for the first time in 

 1802. And the almost innumerable varieties of pansies, dis- 

 tinguished chiefly by the color of their flowers, are all culti- 

 vated from the common, wild violet, while almost as numer- 

 ous are the varieties produced from our common field pump- 

 kin Cucurbita pepo from which have been produced all the 

 varieties of water melons, gourds, musk-melons, squashes, cucum- 

 bers, etc. The character of many of these varieties seems to 



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