New Fruits A small but very real advance in the
nice art of the hybridisation of plants has been made in the matter of straw- berries. The secret lay in the use of the wild strawberry as one ancestor. The Paxton, already a very good and fruitful berry, was found to gain in savour as well as in productive- ness by stealing qualities from the wild strawberry. The best of both parents are preserved. Most of these advances have been secured by the use of ,Mendel's law, of which Burbank, to mention no others, was a very strong supporter. He corre- sponded with that real man of science, in brain if not altogether in training, Mr. John Garton. Mr. Garton was a confirmed believer in recurrence to the vigour of the wild species, and assured me that the high yield of one of the early oats of his invention was chiefly due to the inclusion of the wild oat. As it happened, I saw at the Royal Show, on the stall of the firm he started, a single wheat plant from one grain bearing thirty-five straws and ears. As the ears of this " Wilma " wheat are quite exceptionally long (though narrow like the famous Dutch Wilhelmina), the one wheat grain would yield at least 35 x 6o, or over two thousandfold. Of course (as Prince Kropotkin told in his great little book on intensive cultivation), one grain may be encouraged by a slow earthing up of the plant to produce at least a hundred straws and ears.
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