554 Mutations 



As soon as these flowers faded away, and the 

 young fruits grew out, it became clear that a 

 new type was showing itself. On that indica- 

 tion I removed all the already fertilized flowers 

 and young fruits, and protected the buds from 

 the visits of insects. Thus the isolated flowers 

 were fertilized with their own pollen only, and 

 I could rely ujDon the purity of the seed saved. 

 This lot of seeds was sown in the spring of 1897 

 and yielded a uniform crop of nearly 300 young 

 gigas plants. 



Having found how much depends upon the 

 treatment, I could gradually decrease the size of 

 my cultures. Evidently the chance of discover- 

 ing new types would be lessened thereby, but the 

 question as to the repeated production of the 

 same new forms could more easily and more 

 clearly be answered in this way. In the follow- 

 ing year (1896) I sowed half as many seeds as 

 formerly, and the result proved quite the same. 

 With the exception of gigas all the described 

 forms sprang anew from the purely fertilized 

 ancestry of normal Lamarckianas. It was now 

 the fifth generation of my pedigree, and thus I 

 was absolutely sure that the descendants of the 

 mutants of this year had been pure and without 

 deviation for at least four successive genera- 

 tions. 



Owing partly to improved methods of selec- 



