204 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-SIXTH FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



other parts of the orchard where Black Bens are fruiting near other 

 varieties such as Lawver, York, Imperial, and others, the color is 

 entirely unchanged. Except in color, I can see no other change — size, 

 form, quality and the peculiar shape and modeling about the eye-basin 

 are all typical Black Ben. 



Some years ago I had an observation that I think in the same line. 

 I had planted two patches of potatoes. They just cornered with each 

 ether. One was planted some days before the other. As seed potatoes 

 were scarce that year they were both cut to " single eyes." One was a 

 red potato we used to know as " Garnet," the other was similar in size 

 and form, but white. They both made fine growth and yield. When 

 they were ripe and dug the hills at the contiguous corners were about 

 equally filled with both the white and red and the mixture extended for 

 a number of hills into each patch. Beyond that they were all typical of 

 the variety planted. 



Another experience in potato growing. Some years ago I sent East 

 for a small quantity of what was called "White Elephant." It was 

 planted in the garden along side of some Early Rose. When they were 

 dug but few of them were of their typical white color — and were evi- 

 dently mixed with the Rose. Some of them were uniformly of the Rose 

 color ; some were mottled in splotches and bands of red and white, while 

 a part of them retained their original type. They were all planted the 

 next year but the crop had lost all its character. 



Benjamin Breckman of Illinois claims that this mixing of the tubers 

 when different varieties are planted near each other is the true cause 

 of potatoes "running out" and becoming worthless, which coincides 

 with my own experience and observation. 



But how do the tubers mix? Does the influence in the case of the 

 Black Ben apples and in that of the potatoes come through the pollen ? 

 The Early Rose so very seldom form a bloom, that in the example of the 

 White Elephant it would favor a doubt of that conclusion. We can 

 understand, or at least know the fact that the pollen of one variety 

 greatly influences the true seed germ of another. Has it some power, 

 also, that we do not fully understand; or is the change produced by 

 a subtile diffusion of some hereditary relationship that under certain 

 conditions reaches back to some influence or association of former 

 generations, or a common origin 1 ? 



Two or three years ago, among some yellow speckled beans at gather- 

 ing time, I was surprised to find some white ones. There has certainly 

 been none of that color in the ones planted and no other growing on the 

 place. In shelling out some scattered pods by hand, I found two. one 

 with a single white bean near the middle, and in the other, two white 

 beans with a yellow one between, the others in the pods were all the 

 same as planted; all the individual white one seemed perfect to their 

 type. We are apt in our ignorance of the true cause to call such things 

 "bud variations," "freaks," and "sports," as though nature had 

 momentarily forgotten herself and allowed some new creation to creep 

 into her household by chance. 



There is another class of fruit variations — the influence of the stock 

 upon the scion, that is recognized in a general way, but I think the 

 influence is often greater than supposed. It may be for the better in 

 some characteristic, or, as is more usually the fact, for the worse. 



