The Van Maughn's Theory of the Improvement of Fruits

Some very fine varieties have been produced by selecting the seeds of good sorts promiscuously, and without regarding the age of the trees from which the fruit was taken. The experiments were instituted by his father many years ago to test the truth of the Van Maughn's theory of the improvement of fruits using only the first seeds. From first seeds of the above, one hundred trees were produced, some of which were good fruit, and some even fine, while some were very poor. Four or five only merited attention in the third generation that were worthy of note. We see a retrogression from the random seedlings furnishing twenty-five percent of good fruit, to only four or