Professor Buckman then proceeds to describe how he selected the best samples for cultivation in succeeding generations, till eventually the variety which he called "The Student" was produced, and which Messrs. Sutton still regard as the best variety in their catalogue. That is to say, it has come true to seed for the last forty years; and although such great excellence and stability are doubtless in chief part due to the subsequent process of selection by Professor Buckman in the years 1848-1850, this does not affect the point with which we are here concerned--namely, that the somatogenetic changes of the plants in the first generation were transmitted by seed to the second generation, and thus furnished Professor Buckman with the material for his subsequent process of selection. And the changes in question were not merely of a very definite character, but also of what may be termed a very _local_ character--affecting only particular tissues of the soma, and therefore expressive of a high degree of _representation_ on the part of the subsequently developed seed, by which they were faithfully reproduced in the next generation. Here is another case. M. Lesage examined the tissues of a large number of plants growing both near to, and remote from, the sea. He suspected that the characteristic fleshiness, &c. of seaside plants was due to the influence of sea-salt; and proved that such was the case by causing the characters to occur in inland plants as a result of watering them with salt-water. Then he adds:-- "J'ai réussi surtout pour le _Lepidium sativum_ cultivé en 1888; j'ai obtenu pour la même plante des résultats plus nets encore dans la culture de 1889, entreprise en semant les graines récoltées avec soin des pots de l'année précédente et traitées exactement de la même façon[76]." [76] _Rev. Gén. de Bot._ tom. ii. p. 64.