'seminal sports' 307 



'seminal sports' from pips or seeds selected in a l^phazard 

 manner. Scarcely any of them 'come true' from seed; the 

 peculiar characters which they exhibit are not hereditary; for 

 example, the seeds of a Cox's Orange pippin or a Worcester 

 Pearmain apple when sown do not produce trees bearing apples 

 of these kinds, neither do the seeds of the different varieties of 

 roses or carnations (except in rare instances) give rise to plants 

 bearing flowers similar to their parents. But in these cases, just 

 as in most perennial ' bud-sports,' the fact that their characters 

 are not transmitted to seedling offspring is no drawback to 

 their usefulness, for they can be and are readily propagated 

 vegetatively. 



' Seminal sports ' are not unfrequent among annual plants ; 

 in such instances, their peculiar character to be of use must 

 be hereditary, for there is no practical satisfactory method of 

 propagating these plants except by seeds. Numerous examples 

 of annuals are known in which the new characters presented 

 by them are transmitted, without material modification or altera- 

 tion, to all plants of succeeding generations derived from them. 



Almost all the best cereals are ' seminal sports ' of this class 

 which were originally discovered on some roadside or growing 

 among the plants of an ordinary crop. The late Mr Patrick 

 Sheriff of Mungoswells, Haddington, Scotland, who introduced 

 several new and excellent varieties of cereals into the market, 

 was in the habit of systematically searching his fields of wheat 

 and oats for plants presenting new and marked peculiarities of 

 grain or straw, and although he attempted to raise new varieties 

 by crossing and repeated selection as described below, his best 

 introductions appear to have been ' seminal sports ' discovered 

 in his fields with all their meritorious qualities ready-made and 

 transmissible without change to their seedling offspring. 



The sowing of large numbers of seeds, selected at random, of 

 the apple, pear, and other cultivated plants, in the hope that a 

 valuable variety may turn up suddenly, is a game of chance in 



