How Domestic Varieties Originate 247 



on uniform soil. The larger part of the plants were more 

 or less like the parent. A few reverted. A few of the 

 best plants were selected and the seed saved. I then 

 moved to New York and took the seed with me. This 

 was sown in uniform soil in an isolated position in 1889. 

 This crop, probably as a result of the careful selection of 

 the year before and of the change of locality, was re- 

 markably uniform and handsome. Of the 442 plants 

 I grew that year, none reverted to the little Eiformige 

 Dauer, the German variety from which it had come, but 

 there was some variation in them due to different methods 

 of treatment. I again saved the seeds, and I was now 

 ready to introduce the variety. I therefore sold my seeds, 

 six pounds, to V. H. Hallock & Son, Queens, New York, 

 who introduced it in 1890. The very next year, 1891, I 

 obtained the Ignotum from fifteen dealers and grew the 

 plants side by side. Of the fifteen lots, eight bore small 

 'and poor fruits which were not worth growing and which 

 could not be recognized as Ignotum ! Grown from our 

 own seeds, it still held its character well. Here, then, 

 only a year after its introduction, half the seedsmen were 

 selling a spurious stock. It is possible that some of this 

 variation arose from substitution of other varieties by 

 seedsmen, although I have yet secured no evidence of any 

 unfair dealing. It is possible, also, that the product of 

 some of the samples which I early sent out for testing had 

 found their way into seedsmen's hands. But I am 

 convinced that very much of this variation was a legiti- 

 mate result of the various conditions in which the crops of 

 1890 had been grown, and the varying ideals of those who 

 saved seeds. I am the more positive of this from the 



