NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



much longer time. ... I would not put the 

 question if it were not of so great importance 

 in the study of etiology. It is very closely 

 connected with the question whether one 

 must accept a slowly merging in one another 

 of species, or that one produces the other by 

 jumps. (The pith of DeVries' Mutationis 

 theorie.) In the first place, small deviation 

 would increase in the course of the genera- 

 tions, and long series of intermediate forms 

 would connect the new with the old. In the 

 second case, however, the jump would be 

 made at once, without any intermediates." 



This was written in California by DeVries 

 before he left for his home in Holland, and 

 the very night following his visit to Mr. Bur- 

 bank. He had long advocated the mutation 

 theory earnestly, as elsewhere noted, but in 

 the results of Mr. Burbank's vast experiments 

 he was confronted with facts he had never 

 known before. Hence the following: 



"So long as there were no sufficient 

 examples of this manner of change and we had 

 to rely upon spontaneous varieties in horti- 

 culture, the first proposition was the most 

 probable. It rested upon several experiences 



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