By transplanting them into my
garden, I have isolated them and kept them free from cross-fertilization
with the ordinary type. Moreover, I have brought them under such
conditions as are necessary for the full development of their
characters. And last but not least, I have tried to improve this
character as far as possible by a very rigid and careful selection.
The result of all this effort has been a rapid improvement of my strain.
I saved the seed of the original plants in 1889 and cultivated the
second generation in the following year. It [346] showed some increase
of the anomaly, but not to a very remarkable degree. In the flowering
period I selected four plants with the largest number of quaternate and
quinate leaves and destroyed all the others. I counted in the average 25
anomalous organs on each of them. From their seed I raised the third
generation of my culture in the year 1891.
This generation included some 300 plants, on which above 8,000 leaves
were counted. More than 1,000 were quaternate or quinate, the ternate
leaves being still in the majority. But the experiment clearly showed
that "four-leaved" clovers may be produced in any desired quantity,
provided that the seed of the variety is available. In the summer only
three, four and five leaflets on one stalk were seen, but towards the
fall, and after the selection of the best individuals, this number
increased and came up to six and seven in some rare instances.
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