398 Ever-sporting Varieties 



The result of my attempt has shown that the 

 choice of the seeds has a manifest influence upon 

 the ultimate development of the monstrosity, but 

 that this influence is not strong enough to over- 

 whelm all other factors. 



The choice of the fullest or smallest crowns 

 may be repeated during succeeding generations, 

 and each time compared with a culture under 

 average conditions. By this means we come to 

 true selection-experiments, and these result in 

 a notable and rapid change of the whole strain. 

 By selecting the brightest crowns I have come 

 up in three years from 40 to 90 and ultimately 

 to 120 converted stamens in the best flower of 

 my culture, and in selecting the smallest crowns 

 I was able in three j'ears to exclude nearly all 

 good crowns, and to make cultures in which 

 heads with less than half-filled crowns consti- 

 tuted the majority. But such selected strains 

 always remain very sensitive to treatment, and 

 by changing the conditions the effect may be 

 wholly lost in a single year, or even turned 

 in the contrary direction. In other words, the 

 anomaly is more dependent on external condi- 

 tions during the germinating period than on the 

 choice of the seeds, providing these belong to 

 the pistilloid variety and have not deteriorated 

 by some crossing with other sorts. 



At the beginning of this lecture I stated that 



