224 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
regularly search the fields of tomatoes 
which he grew for seed purposes, for 
such sports, and almost all of his num¬ 
erous varieties were produced by the dis¬ 
covery of such striking variations.” 
“Another kind of variation, probably 
of little value to the breeder of annual 
plants and about which we as yet know 
very little, is the so-called bud varia¬ 
tions, sports or bud mutations. Chrysan¬ 
themum and rose growers know that it 
is not a very uncommon thing for a plant 
to produce a branch which will be entirely 
different from the remaining portions of 
the plant. Valuable new varieties of 
roses, chrysanthemums, carnations and 
some other flowers and fruits have been 
secured by the selection and propagation 
of such bud variations. They seem in 
a large measure to be comparable to 
mutations except that they originate in 
a bud change instead of a change occur¬ 
ring in the sexual reproduction. It is 
probable that they will ultimately be 
found to be due to similar causes, being 
produced in the same way..” 
Prof. Webber also speaks of the work 
of an experimenter stimulating plants to 
produce mutations by injecting chemical 
salts at certain periods. Mr. Phelps, 
however, believed that no effect in nature 
is produced without some active, adequate 
cause and that the bud changes were ef¬ 
fected by the organs of reproduction of 
the flowers. 
The citrus are the most highly organ¬ 
ized plants I know of. The discovery 
that cross-pollination changes citrus 
fruits on the parent tree to hybrid fruits 
but not with hybrid seeds, goes back one 
hundred vears to Gallesio. 
Mr. Phelps discovered that not only 
was the fruit affected in these rare in¬ 
stances by cross-pollination, but that the 
wood immediately below the fruit partook 
of the cross also and by taking buds be¬ 
low the fruit when small he secured trees 
that bore the hybrid fruit and remained 
true to type. Pie also claimed that by 
forcing the trees with special combina¬ 
tions of chemical fertilizers they were 
more susceptible and that he proved these 
results by artificial cross-pollination. 
These were lost in 1895. 
It is unfortunate no public experi¬ 
menter has had the courage and patience 
to work on this line like Burbank on hy¬ 
brids, as the results when obtained are 
more immediate and certain. The estab¬ 
lishing of a working plan, however, 
would require considerable experiment 
compared with growing hybrid seedling 
plants, as a majority of hybrids show 
crossing from the start, while with cross- 
pollinated sports the negative results 
might possibly be as great as the rejec¬ 
tions from seedlings. The occurrence of 
these bud sports from bud wood used just 
after the spring bloom has been often ob¬ 
served by citrus nurserymen and fruit 
growers. 
So far as I know they have never been 
noted from bud wood taken before bloom¬ 
ing. I have secured two and probably 
three varieties of navels in this manner. 
The influence of the bud on the stock, 
is also greater than imagined, as 
was shown in numerous cases after the 
1895 freeze where lemon and sweet or¬ 
ange sprouts sprang from the roots of 
sour stocks on which lemons and oranges 
had been previously budded but killed 
out. 
Mr. Phelps was an original member 
of the Nurserymen’s Association that was 
reorganized into the old Florida Horticul- 
tural Society. He was a charter member 
of the present State Horticultural Society 
