Of course I am quite convinced that a
repetition of my experiment on a far larger scale would yield the
desired types, but then only in such rare instances that they would have
no influence whatever on the average, or on the improvement of the race.
The eighth generation in the year 1903 has not been noticeably better
than the second and third generations after the first selection.
In comparing this statement with the results gained in the experiment
with the red clover, the difference is at once striking. In one case a
rich variety was isolated, and, by better treatment and sharp methods of
selection, was brought up in a few years to its highest pitch of
development. In the other case a very weak race was shown to exist, and
no amount of work and perseverance was adequate to improve it to any
noticeable degree.
I wish to point out that the decision of what is to be expected from
deviating specimens may become manifest within one or two generations.
Even the generation grown from the seeds of [361] the first observed
aberrant-individuals, if gathered after sufficient isolation during the
period of blossoming, may show which type of inheritance is present,
whether it is an unpromising half-race, or a richly endowed sporting
variety. I have kept such strains repeatedly after the first isolation,
and a special case, that of cotyledoneous aberrations, will be dealt
with later.
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