THE HOP PLANT. 29 



is looked upon as only a medium yield. No less excellent 

 are the results obtained from potatoes by selection ; and the 

 author would ask why the collective experience gained should 

 not also be utilised in the case of hops, and why should not 

 the selection of hops be crowned with the same success that 

 has attended the other instances cited ? 



Of course, the natural law must be followed, that new 

 varieties can only be obtained by sexual reproduction, i.e., 

 by raising plants from seed. All experience tends to show 

 that no new properties ever become fixed in plants repro- 

 duced by vegetative means, but that the characteristics of 

 the parent plant are simply transmitted to the offspring, 

 and make their appearance in varying proportion, according 

 to the prevailing conditions of existence, such as soil, climate, 

 manuring and cultivation. The production of new varieties 

 by this means is just as impossible as to get a cutting from 

 a green grape vine to grow blue grapes. The bushes obtained 

 from cuttings of red currant trees invariably bear red fruit, 

 and strawberry plants propagated from stolons always yield 

 fruit similar in shape and flavour to that of the parent 

 plant. 



If some among the individual plants obtained by the 

 vegetative method exhibit a remarkably satisfactory appear- 

 ance, this is merely the result of favourable conditions, and 

 if such plants or portions thereof are exposed to conditions 

 affording them inferior opportunities their good qualities 

 disappear sooner or later, a proof that locality was the influ- 

 ential factor — -this, as is well known, having no perpetuating 

 power. If, however, plants that have been raised from seed 

 in a nursery manifest certain good qualities as a result of 

 spontaneous variation, the foundation of new kinds can be 

 laid by means of cuttings from the parent plant, which 

 cuttings, again reproduced by a sexual means, will retain the 

 properties of the selected parent. The existing varieties of 



