The laws of heredity : their definite meaning and interpretation / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D.

Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The laws of heredity : their definite meaning and interpretation / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Production of Mutants Mr. Burbank had not proceeded far in his studies of hybridization before he discovered that the most astonishing segregation and re- distribution of characters may take place in second-generation hybrids. If he crossed two parent strains that were more or less divergent, he might find the traits of the parents variously blended in the hybrids of the first generation, but if he interbred these hybrids, he was almost sure to get in the next generation a conglomerate fraternity, showing the traits of the grandparental forms reassorted into almost every imaginable combination. More than that, there were likely to appear forms that diverged markedly from either of the grand- parents. It would seem that the mingling of divergent germ-plasms had made _ possible the _ reju- venescence of ancestral traits that had long been submerged. Mr. Burbank found that by carefully inbreed- ing individuals that showed the new or revived trait, he could accentuate the quality and in many cases produce new varieties so markedly different from either of the grandparental forms as to justify his use of the term “new creations.” The only plausible explanation of such an- [20]
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