THE BURBANK CHERRY 



The immediate progeny of this cross would be 

 of no value as the bad qualities of the worthless 

 cherry were dominant. But among the remoter 

 descendants I have been able to discover indi- 

 viduals that combine the quality of prolific 

 bearing with the good qualities of the other parent 

 stock, and in which the undesirable qualities of 

 the original worthless ancestor were quite elim- 

 inated. 



It must be clear that this result could not have 

 been brought about if the various pairs of qual- 

 ities — ^large size versus small size, sweetness 

 versus sourness, prolific versus shy bearing, and 

 the like — ^had not been separated in the germ 

 plasm of the hybrids in such a way that the unit 

 characters could be sorted out and any good 

 quality transmitted to the later generations, unim- 

 paired by its contact with the opposing bad 

 quality. 



In other words, had there been a blending of 

 traits in the sense in which the older experi- 

 menters imagined the traits of hybrids to be 

 blended, we should have had at best a cross in 

 which the qualities of the worthless cherry were 

 mingled with those of the valuable one; a race 

 which, if somewhat better than its worthless 

 ancestor, was somewhat worse than its valued 

 one. 



[229] 



