144 
eight times the production of the poor- 
est yielder, yet when we allowed these 
parents to make runners and propagated 
from them by these runners we found 
just as much variation in the runners 
produced from the one as we did among 
those produced from the other. In other 
words, we got equally good and equally 
bad plants in each lot. That was con- 
tinued after 12 years of selection. 
“In the case of the Ben Davis apples 
we kept a record of the production of 
individual trees in an orchard where one 
tree was found to be uniformly a low 
yielder and where three trees were found 
to be uniformly high yielders. Scions 
were taken from the low yielding and 
from the high yielding trees. These were 
worked on seedling roots and finally 
planted in the orchard so that in a row 
throughout the orchard there occurred 
first a tree from the high yielding par- 
ent, then a tree from the low yielding 
parent, and so on alternating throughout 
the row. These trees have been in bear- 
ing after four years and in the three 
crops produced as much variation among 
the different trees apparently as there 
is in any other Ben Davis orchard. We 
have as good yielders taken from the 
poor yielding parent as we have from 
the others. On the other hand we have 
as poor yielders taken from the good 
yielding parent as we have from the 
others. 
“I know of a few instances where at- 
tempt has been made to secure high 
yielding trees by selecting buds from es- 
pecially good producing trees, but I do 
not know of any instances that are au- 
thentic where anything has been gained 
by this practice. I do not want to con- 
clude that it is impossible for bud varia- 
tion to occur in an occasional tree in 
which the variation expresses itself sim- 
ply in the form of great productivness, 
but I do believe that the fact that a tree 
happens to have a high record as a pro- 
ducer is no indication of the fact that 
this quality would be transmitted to its 
bud offspring. 
“Personally I believe that variations 
that come from buds are due to some- 
thing which lies within the tree or some 
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRACTICAL HORTICULTURE 
stimulus applied to the bud while it is 
forming. I do not believe that differences 
due to environment, soil formation, de. 
grees of fertilization, freedom from dis. 
eases, pests, etc., are capable of being 
transmitted to the offspring. I am not 
ready to conclude that individual parent 
trees might not be found which would be 
capable of transmitting larger produc- 
tiveness through their buds I know of 
no direct evidence up to date, however, 
that we can secure higher yielding trees 
of a given variety by this method. | 
think further experiments should be tried 
out by those who happen to know of es- 
pecially high yielding specimens of fruits 
before one could reach a positive con- 
clusion.” 
Regarding Laws of Variation 
The causes of variations through he- 
redity are not the same as the causes of 
variation through environment. Varia- 
tions of budded stocks seem to follow 
environmental causes rather than heredi- 
tary causes. When you cut scions from 
a tree, set them on new roots and trans- 
plant them to various soils and climates, 
you are virtually testing that same tree 
in a variety of environments and the 
variations which occur from the original 
type will be due to environment. The 
thing to be determined is, Will changes 
which are due to changed environment 
become permanent; for example, will the 
Spitzenbure, which produces an apple of 
a certain size, shape, flavor and color in 
the Yakima country, produce the same 
fruit when transplanted to the Ozark 
mountains? 
The conditions under which plants will 
vary may be summarized as follows: The 
nature or quality of the food; the quan- 
tity of food; the nature of the climate; 
the nature of the competition under 
which the plant has to survive; the na- 
ture of enemies, such as fungi, insects, 
animals or other injurious circumstances; 
nature of the care given; all these in 
relation to the nature of the organism, 
its vigor, health, and equilibrium of all 
its parts. 
U. P. Hedrick of the Geneva experi- 
ment station (New York) has the follow- 
