ON THE CHERRY 



appearance, and there will be nothing in the ap- 

 pearance of their fruit, to indicate which of them 

 contain only the factors of dominance (BB), and 

 which contain the recessive factor combined with 

 the other (B6). Yet for the purpose of future ex- 

 perimentation, in which we shall be obliged to call 

 on succeeding generations, it makes a vast differ- 

 ence which individuals are selected. 



We are well aware of this as we walk along 

 the row of our seedlings, but we are also aware 

 that there is no method by which we can fathom 

 the secrets of the germ plasm of otir seedlings, to 

 determine which are BB and which are Bb stock — 

 save only the method of future breeding. 



In spite of our best endeavors it may very well 

 happen that the ten or twelve seedlings that we 

 now select, to be grafted for the continuance of 

 our experiment, include not a single pure domi- 

 nant (BB), but are made up exclusively of mixed 

 dominants (Bb). We have seen that the latter are 

 twice as numerous as the others, and that the two 

 look just alike; therefore the chances are two to 

 one that they will be chosen in the majority, and 

 it will not be strange if they are inadvertently 

 chosen to the exclusion of the others. 



Yet this choice will insure that the factor of 

 smallness which we are striving to eliminate was 

 carefully preserved in the germ plasm of the 



[83] 



