Mower County transcript., 1903-03-18
S. NJ. HoR|'TICUL / LT1uRAL.
Papers Read Before the Recent Meet
Ing of the S. M. Horticultural
Society at Albert Lea.
SEEDING APPLES.
Wyman Elliott, Minneapolis.

Wyman Elliott, Minneapolis.
Truly this is an epoch of remarkable
intensity:
What was a profound mystery ten
wears ago. today has become pro-
nounced fact, so great is the advance
ment in learning. We are living in a
wonderful age of development. New
methods and new laws, governing
many of the unsolved problems of ev-
cry day investigation, are promulgated.
New principles are discovered and
spread, with lightning speed, from one
end of the earth to the other.
The student of today has many helps,
that few years ago were denied him,
because of the inetficiency of reliable
information and there are yet many
problems, in the industrial arts, to be
solved by the fertile. brains of students
persistent in the pursuit of knowledge.
What I shall say to you today, is
made up largely of extracts, from noted
scientists, upon the problems of heredi-
tary and cross breeding, applied more
particularly to apple growing, and a
few personal ideas, suggestions and
observations. Nv. :ssasa3
Prof. w Bateson in his book entitl-
ed "a defence of Mendel's principles of
heredlty," says, "An exact determina-
tion Of the laws of heredity will
probably work more change in mans
outlook on the world and in his power
over nature, than any other advance in
natural knowledge; that can clearly
be foreseen." "No, one has better op-
portunities of pursuing such work,
than horticulturists and breeders,
who are daily witnesses of the phenom-
ena of heredity. Their success also
depends largely on knowledge of its
laws, and obviously every increase in
that knowledge is of direct and special,
q Importance to them."
"Mendeps laws of governing the
problems of heredity, have created a
wonderful impulse in the study Of hy-
bridization of plants and animals, while
it may not hold wholly true in all cases,
and whether some of the cases that de-
part most widely from it, can be
brought within the terms of the same
principle or not, can only be decided by
further experiments" %>.. .4
"The question arises, how can these
results be, brought in harmony with
the facts of hybridization hitherto
known, and if all this is true, how is it
i that Others who have carefully studied
the phenomeiinoh ;0fs ttiy ybrid ization have
not, long ago, perceived this law ?"
"Mendel admits, from the first, that
there are undoubtedly cases Of hybrids
and cross breeds which maintain them
selves pure and do not break up (the
Fameuse apple, for instance, resembles,
in measure this type.) Such examples
are plainly outside the scope Of this
law"
"He next points out what, to anyone
who has rightly comprehended the ma
ture of discontinuity in variation, is
we'll known that the variation in each
character must he separately regarded"
"In most experiments in crossing,
forms are taken which differ from each
other, in multitude of characters
some continuous, others discontinuous
some capable of blending with their
contraries, while others are not.''
"That different species should follow
different laws and that the same law
should not apply to all characters alike,
is exactly what we have right to ex-
pect; this principle is only explicitly de
clared to apply to discontinuous char
acters."
"We are beginning to get new lights,
of most valuable kind, on the nature
of heredity and the laws which they
cells of a given constitutions, uniform
in respect of characters they bear,
breeds with another organism bearing
precisely similar germ cells, the OF
spring resulting will, if the conditions
are Identical, be uniform. In practice
such a phenomenon is seen in pure
breeding" If we use w., representing
Wealthy, pollen crossed on NJ, Malinda,
for the mother side, according to the
law promulgated by Galton, the inheri-
tance will be blended, namely the w.
cote (the organism produced from fer.
tilization) resulting from the union Of
w with NJ will, on the average, be more
like Nj than if w had been united with
w and conversely that AVN zygote
will, on the average, he more like w
than MN zyg0te would be. T. ,., H..
As anexample illustrating this point
we will take the Perkins apple seed.
lings; Wealthy, Duchess, Perry Russet
&C., furnished the pollen for fertiliza'
tion, some in q greater amount than
others, no doubt, and Malinda was the
mOlnoG Sluos 84s6 isG0Sult W0tE08V0. the
greatest numbSrSOf seedlings produc,
ing fruit in exterior form, largely rep
resenting the father side Of the, cross;
only in q few instances are there fruits
representing the 4alinda tYpe III form
but not in colp aYhe c0ioring .1n
nearly every instance, comes from tht
fatheE. etdo.es
look upon the Perkins experiment
as being one of the most valuable ii
the state Of which we have any cogniz-
ance today, in that he has large mum
Der Of trees from this Ions planting 81
seed and hope we shall be able to dis:
cover, at least, one out OF the many
that will prove of great value to tie
fruit industry Of our state. 81.
We are beginning To- zee some peas
ons for the many unexplained phenom
ena existing in the efforts that are bein1
d put forth to raise bee dling apples adapt
ed to our soil condi iti0ns and climati,
changes; We find there isSa valid reaso1
for many Of the change and variation
persented; when we ssunde dertake t0shreet
q ,,lant nY m, anfnlHI "a GfIInA narticn