Seven ambitious brothers and how they bred a race of kings / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D.

Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Seven ambitious brothers and how they bred a race of kings / editor: Henry Smith Williams, M.D., LL.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    obvious that such a case as that just cited is pre- cisely comparable to what takes place when Mr. Burbank endeavors to fix and accentuate a qual- ity by what he commonly speaks of as line-breed- ing—that is to say, by the union of individuals having the same hereditary tendencies. When, for example, Mr. Burbank discovered a specimen of the wild California plant called Heuchera, or “wild geranium,” that had a ten- dency to crinkle the edges of the leaves, he transplanted this specimen to his garden and care- fully inbred its progeny generation after genera- tion, selecting always the ones that showed the tendency of malformation of leaves, until pres- ently he had a new race of Heuchera with the most curiously convoluted leaves. He could not have produced this result had he not interbred individuals that had the pecul- iarity of their heredity. And this, indeed, is the typical method, as al- ready suggested, by which Mr. Burbank fixes and accentuates a character, once that character has manifested itself. It was thus, for example, that the scented callas and verbenas and petunias were produced; also the improved Burbank varie- ties of almost numberless other flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Of course, in the case of the human parents [23 ]
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