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PHILADELPHIA, OCTOBER, 1867. 



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LAWS OP VARIATIOKT. 



There are few subjects which are receiving more 

 attention from scientific men in Europe and Ame- 

 rica, than the laws of variation, and to the intelligent 

 Horticulturist particularly, as bearing on the iden- 

 tity of varieties and many other matters of similar 

 import, the question is a particularly interesting 

 one. 



By noting facts, probably what now seems a mere 

 matter of chance, will in time be found to be as well 

 established by law, as many such cases have been. 



Some months ago we referred to a ring leaved 

 willow on the ground of Charles J. Wister, in Ger- 

 mantown after twenty j^ears, producing a branch of 

 the common weeping willow from which it originally 

 sprang. 



In the July number of The American Journal of 

 Horticulture, we notice that Mr. W. C. Strong, re- 

 cords a parallel case in a curled leaved willow on his 

 own ground. 



Wo are very apt to say in such cases, that the 

 tree has merely "reverted to its original form," but 

 this explains nothing. "From nothing, nothing 

 can come;" and the germ cell or vital principle to 

 produce a change of form mu«t either be inherent 

 in a doimant form, or the new form must be spe- 

 cially created about the time we first see it. Most 

 philosophers suppose a new form to be a sort of 

 special creation, but these instances of reversions to 

 old forms after so many years of departure, would 

 seem to indicate that form exists in germ cells v> hich 

 float along with the individual awaiting the fiat of 

 the omnipotent to develope into existence. 



It will be a remarkable thing if some future Dar- 

 win should be able to demonstrate, that the seeds 

 of change exist in the individual from the first crea- 

 tion of the species, always on hand ready to aid the 

 individual, in its struggle for existence ; those seeds, 

 developing which many aid it, and those forms dying 

 away which have served the plants purposes. 



We think our English friends in accounting for 

 variation place too much value on hybridization, 



and too little on natural laws of evolution. It is 

 not even necessary to show a necessity for a particu- 

 lar form being essential to a plant's existence. Na- 

 ture is a spendthrift of the most stupendous kind. 

 She fills an oak tree with thousands of acorns for 

 every score she is able to get to grow into young 

 trees, and the poet has well expressed it in the idea 

 of the numerous flowers — 



Born to blush unseen. 

 And waste their fragrance on the desert air," 



and so with form, nature varies it in a thousand 

 way 5 for no object that we can see, except that out 

 of the greater abundance shall be the greater chance 

 of some being on hand at the right time wanted. 



This long existence of dormant germ cells of form, 

 for we know no better way to express the idea, we 

 saw curiously illustrated recently at Flushing, on the 

 grounds of Parsons & Co. Every intelligent nurse- 

 ryman knows that when he raises a lot of seedling 

 Norway Spruces, Arborvitses, Hemlocks — indeed of 

 any evergreen — there are always some with startling 

 peculiarities, especially in growth. Some are very 

 vigorous, others are "dwarf" In this way, all the 

 dwarf evergreens have been produced, and amongst 

 Norway Spruces, the Abies Clanhrasiliana, a very 

 dwarf form, is well known. In Parsons' collection, 

 a row of perhaps half a dozen Clanbrasilianas have 

 started to grow as strong as the ordinary Norway 

 Spruces, — plants raised from cuttings, as Mr. 

 Trumpey, the very intelligent propagator assured 

 us. These plants are now about five feet high, and 

 exactly like any common form of Norway Spruce. 

 The return of this variety to the original is still 

 more remarkable than the Willow case ; because, as 

 only a female form of the common Weeping Willow 

 is known in cultivation, the curled leaved Willow^ is 

 only a sport which has probably sprung cut of the 

 Weeping Willow stem, and been preserved by cut- 

 ting ; and every propagator knows there is generally 

 a tendency to "revert," in plants of varieties so 

 raised. But here is a case where a variety raised from 

 seed reverts to the seed parent form, and the germ 

 cell must not only have existed in the structure of 

 the individual for many years, as in the willow, but 

 have I assed through all the processes of fertilization 

 which the seedling form has to undergo. 



It seems to us that such instances as these should 

 be of great use to students of the law of the evolu- 

 tion of form. To us it seems that even the necessi- 

 ties asked for by Darwin are not essential to produce 

 new forms. The germs of form exist in the plant, 

 develop and have existed from the beginning of all 

 things, and develop by the plants own innate power 

 chiefly, aided a little by the external circumstances 



, US' — Of\v 



