No. 524] 



NOTES AND LITERATURE 



509 



agrees very fully with this statement. There has. however, been 

 a good deal of work which indicates that in old agricultural 

 varieties variations have frequently occurred which render selec- 

 tion with a view to isolating the best strains present justifiable. 

 Thus Waid, of the Ohio Experiment Station, Zavitz, of the 

 Ontario Station, and L. G. Dodge, of the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, have, by selection in old varieties of potatoes, ob- 

 tained strains which outyielded the variety from which the selec- 

 tion was made. It is true the objection may here be urged that 

 the supposed variety from which the selection was made was 

 really a mixture, but this point is granted. The only question 

 is as to how the mixture came about, whether by mutation or 

 by mechanical mixture. It may not be possible to settle this 

 question definitely because of the difficulty of proving the purity 

 of an old variety ; but the results that have been accomplished, 

 it appears to the writer, do justify selection in old varieties with 

 a view to isolating superior strains. After all. Dr. East would 

 probably agree perfectly with the writer in what has just been 



Concerning the character of bud variations, a number of which 

 were found in East's work, the author gives it as his opinion 

 "that practically all, if not quite all, bud variations are losses 

 of a dominant, or epistatie. character allowing the appearance 

 of a recessive, or hypostatic, character." lie mentions four pink 

 or red varieties that produced white variations that were 

 constant the next season; also a purple variety produced a 

 similar white variation. Several apparent changes from white 

 to colored tubers appear, but they were not hereditary, and the 

 varieties producing such variations had pink sprouts. Two 

 varieties are mentioned in which changes of shape from long 

 to round tubers occurred, the changes being permanent. Sev- 

 eral other similar changes occurred but were not permanent. 

 Change from shallow to dee]) eyes occurred in four varieties. In 



occurred, the peculiarity consisting in the formation of two 

 tubers on the same rootstock at some distance from each other. 



hereditary. It is not known whether the new type is recessive 



types are all recessive. The author suggests that these bud 



It does not seem to the writer that this is a necessary conclusion. 



