Mutations 91 



have originated varieties by finding occasionally unusually 

 good plants and propagating from them. These excep- 

 tional plants seem to bear no relationship to the others 

 among which they are growing. Hybrid origin may 

 account for certain of them and mutations for the others. 

 Many of our well-known races of wheat have originated 

 in this way. The Fultz wheat, which is a very popular 

 and excellent race grown extensively in the Eastern States, 

 was found in 1862 in a field of Lancaster Red by Mr. 

 Abraham Fultz of Pennsylvania. Some beautiful heads 

 of smoother wheat attracted his attention and they were 

 saved and the seeds planted by themselves. These pro- 

 duced the wheat later named the Fultz. The Tappa- 

 hannock wheat, which, in 1872, was considered to be a 

 valuable race, was found in 1854 by a Mr. Boughton, of 

 Essex County, Virginia. The account of its discovery 

 as given in the Report of the Department of Agriculture 

 for 1872 is as follows : "He noticed in his field a bunch 

 of wheat of such growth as to attract his attention. . . . 

 At harvest he found it to be a white wheat, at least two 

 weeks earlier than the surrounding red wheat." Gold 

 Coin Wheat, a seedling sport, differing from the hybrid 

 Mediterranean in being bald and white, was found by 

 Ira W. Green, of New York, in a field of that race and 

 improved by selection. In the next five years the type 

 was fixed and increased in yield about ten per cent. The 

 American races, Wheatland Red, Pride Butte, and the 

 well-known English races, Hopetown and Cavalier, were 

 other accidental seedling races. 



