482 SPOETS ARE OR MAT BECOME PERMANENT. 



when a Peach-tree produces a smooth fruit (a Nectarine) amon 

 its own downy brood. These sudden changes seem to I 

 essentially different in their nature from the gradual alteratior 

 which cultivation brings about in all plants ; they are violer 

 transformations .produced by unknown causes, and in whic! 

 there is a natural tendency to preserve the altered condition 

 Some examples and their known results wUl make thi 

 plainer. 



The annual Clarkia pulchella bears naturally a purple flowei 

 Unexpectedly, among other seedlings, a plant appeared in whicl 

 the flowers were pure white— a vegetable Albiao. That was i 

 sport. The seed was saved and sown ; the produce consiste( 

 of many purple and many white-flowering iadividtials. Th 

 purples which had lost the new tendency were removed, an( 

 seed again saved from the pure whites; the next batch o 

 seedlings was much more white than purple ; the next batcl 

 was all white, and thus the o^ginal sport was fixed. 



"When, the Provins Eose produced a branch on which thi 

 flowers were buried ajnong those glandular expansions of th( 

 calyx and its footstalk which we call mossiness, the first Mosi 

 Eose was born :■ — ^that again was a sport.. 



"When some Celosia suddenly formed its flowers upon i 

 thickened, flattened (fasciated) stalk, and they became mori 

 crowded than usual, we had a Cockscomb, and that again was i 

 sport. The plant thus changed, by whatever cause, had gainei 

 a constitutional tendency to grow in the cockscomb or fasciatei 

 manner; by repeatedly saving seed from the most fasciate( 

 and the dwarfest seedlings, that which was at first a meri 

 tendency or predisposition became as fixed a constitutiona 

 character as was acquired by the greyhound when he firs 

 became a new variety of some other kind of dog. Thii 

 fasciated character was at first a mere monstrosity, such as wi 

 see around us here and there in a great variety of plants ij 

 which no one has yet thought of fixing the habit. If it ha; 

 a tendency to disappear under neglect, as those who buy chea] 

 seeds know that it has, so, on the other hand^ it has also i 

 tendency to increase under skilful management, as was showi 

 by Mr. Aiidrew Knight when he, by one single effort, brough 



