AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 75 



there seems little doubt that acclimatization does occur. The 

 change may occur through the modification of the constitution or 

 habit of an individual plant or through variation of its offspring. 



There is a very general opinion that a change in the individual 

 plant is impossible. The truth can only be determined by growing 

 the same plant in different climates. In general, if cuttings be 

 taken from a certain plant to two other localities and from thence 

 after a period of time, plants be taken to a fourth locality, if 

 marked variations are found to have arisen, we must conclude that 

 there has been a modification of the individual plant. 



Again, it is well known that peach trees taken from Georgia to 

 Virginia blossom several days later than do those of the same 

 variety taken from New York or New Jersey. As the peach is 

 propagated by buds, it is evident that the same plant has become 

 modified in habit. It is not improbable that the same rule will hold 

 in case of many if not most of our fruits and vegetables. 



The method by which acclimatization most commonly occurs is 

 through variation in offspring. The Russian fruits are illustrations 

 in point. These fruits have been bred in a cold climate so long 

 that they are much hardier than are other plants of the same species 

 as grown elsewhere. The Russian apricot, for example, is simply 

 a hardy race of the common apricot — Prumis armeniaca — yet it 

 will often stand a temperature of thirty degrees below zero. 



Careful observation of a field of beans or corn or tomatoes after 

 a frost will reveal a marked variation in the hardiness of individ- 

 uals. By selection from these plants hardier strains may be 

 produced. Similar differences in earliness, in habit of growth, in 

 quality, etc., may always be seen. 



In other words, no two individual plants are exactly alike, and 

 the application of the principles of selection is of the greatest 

 importance in building up new and valuable types. The key to the 

 whole matter, in the words of D&rwin, is "man's power of accumu- 

 lative selection. Nature gives successive variations ; man adds 

 them up in certain directions useful to him." 



The highest step in the improvement of plants — that of cross 

 breeding — is of comparatively recent origin. It is the climax of 

 all effort in this direction, and to it we must look in our endeavors 

 to secure hardy or otherwise desirab'e sorts of fruits and vegetables 

 in the shortest possible time. It is in this way that we may hope 

 to unite the quality of more southern varieties with the hardiness 

 and productiveness of our northern sorts. 



