LUTHER BURBANK 



of two nearly white strains, you may get dark 

 colors in unpredictable combinations. 



By studying the combinations, however, and 

 making rigid selection among the seedlings, it will 

 be discovered that there are certain color tenden- 

 cies that tend to be dominant, and that, as a rule, 

 may be expected to repeat themselves in the hybrid 

 offspring, overshadowing the less fixed colors. 

 Still the races of gladioli are so blended, and the 

 color factors in their germ plasm so mixed, that 

 one may confidently expect to find new and inter- 

 esting combinations among any large lot of hybrid 

 seedlings. 



Indeed, it is not necessary to make new crosses 

 in order to get interesting new types, since, as we 

 have seen, all cultivated races of gladiolus are 

 hybrids that carry many racial strains, and hence 

 manifest the tendency to vary that we have seen 

 everywhere manifested by hybrids in second and 

 later generations ; the pioneer work having already 

 been accomplished with nearly all our cultivated 

 fruits and berries, and most cultivated flowers. 



Nevertheless, it is of course possible to exert 

 a directive influence through selecting parents for 

 crossing, and further direction may be given by 

 selection among the seedlings for any given color 

 or combination of colors. So new races with 

 unique color combinations may readily develop, 



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