LUTHER BURBANK 



shortness will obviously have no propensity to 

 grow tall, and the pea that contains two factors 

 for greenness of pod will obviously have no capac- 

 ity for the production of pods other than green. 



So our short pea vine with its green pods, 

 although it represents a new variety, which, for 

 the sake of argument we assume never to have 

 existed before; and although it appeared sud- 

 denly as what might be considered a mutation, yet 

 is fixed from the outset, and will breed true, and 

 constitute an established variety. 



All this we have referred to in earlier chapters, 

 and we have seen many illustrations of this so- 

 called Mendelian inheritance in the case of a good 

 many of our plant developments — the white black- 

 berry, for example, the stoneless plum, and the 

 thornless blackberry among others. But it seemed 

 worth while to make specific reference to Mendel's 

 work with the peas, in the present connection, in 

 particular because this work doubtless represents 

 the most important thing that has been done with 

 the pea at any recent stage of its development. 

 Peas Versus Beans 



It was perhaps fortunate that the Austrian 

 monk chose the pea for his investigation rather 

 than the bean, for, notwithstanding the fairly close 

 relationship between these two, there is a rather 

 marked difference between them as to their prac- 



[96] 



