To my surprise, I hear from Mr. Salter that he brings the principle of selection to bear on variegated plants propagated by buds, and has thus greatly improved and fixed several varieties. He informs me that at first a branch often produces variegated leaves on one side alone, and that the leaves are marked only with an irregular edging or with a few lines of white and yellow. To improve and fix such varieties, he finds it necessary to encourage the buds at the bases of the most distinctly marked leaves, and to propagate from them alone. By following with perseverance this plan during three or four successive seasons, a distinct and fixed variety can generally be secured.
Finally, the facts given in this chapter prove in how close and remarkable a manner the germ of a fertilised seed and the small cellular mass forming a bud, resemble each other in all their functions—in their power of inheritance with occasional reversion,—and in their capacity for variation of the same general nature, in obedience to the same laws. This resemblance, or rather identity of character, is shown in the most striking manner by the fact that the cellular tissue of one species or variety, when budded or grafted on another, may give rise to a bud having an intermediate character. We have seen that variability does not depend on sexual generation, though much more frequently its concomitant than of bud reproduction. We have seen that bud-variability is not solely dependent on reversion or atavism to long-lost characters, or to those formerly acquired from a cross, but appears often to be spontaneous. But when we ask ourselves what is the cause of any particular bud-variation, we are lost in doubt, being driven in some cases to look to the direct action of the external conditions of life as sufficient, and in other cases to feel a profound conviction that these have played a quite subordinate part, of not more importance than the nature of the spark which ignites a mass of combustible matter.
REFERENCES
[1] Since the publication of the first edition of this work, I have found that M. Carrière, Chef des Pépinières au Mus. d’Hist. Nat., in his excellent Essay ‘Production et Fixation des Variétés, 1865,’ has given a list of bud-variations far more extensive than mine; but as these relate chiefly to cases occurring in France I have left my list as it stood, adding a few facts from M. Carrière and others. Any one who wishes to study the subject fully should refer to M. Carrière’s Essay.
[2] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1854, p. 821.
[3] Lindley’s ‘Guide to Orchard,’ as quoted in ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 821. For the Early mignonne peach, see ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1864, p. 1251.
[4] ‘Transact. Hort. Soc.,’ vol. ii. p. 160.
[5] See also ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1863, p. 27.
[6] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 821.
[7] ‘Gardener’s Chronicle,’ 1852, p. 629; 1856, p. 648; 1864, p. 986. Other cases are given by Braun ‘Rejuvenescence,’ in ‘Ray Soc. Bot. Mem.,’ 1853, p. 314.