Weather influences / [Edwin Grant Dexter].

  • Dexter, Edwin Grant, 1868-1938.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Weather influences / [Edwin Grant Dexter]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    strength; varieties of birds distinguished by their speed, their plumage, or their song; species of plants or grains or fruits with almost any desired properties. In almost every case, one seeks to combine two appropriate cell structures or protoplasms, but never expects to directly alter the nature of the cells. Nature accomplishes the same result by selection and survival of the fittest. By cultivating a special crop in a new climate the plants do seem to become inured to that climate and to change their nature, but this is by virtue of a recognized law in plant life, viz., that erratic cells, or so-called ‘‘sports” are con- tinually being produced. Perhaps we ought to say that Nature, in her efforts to reproduce a cell like that of the original seed, actually produces millions of attempts that resemble the original seed to a greater or less degree, quite in accordance with the law of probability of errors. That is to say, out of a hundred seeds from the same plant, there is an even chance that 75 will he like the original seed. There is also an even chance that five will differ in some notable respect from the original seed. If any one of these latter five chance to fall in the proper spot and grow, that plant becomes the so-called “sport” of the botanist, and by proper cultivation may be made to give rise to a permanent new variety. In this way plants adapted to every variety of climate have been produced, and the process goes on naturally in the open field, as well as artificially in the greenhouse. The winds, the rivers, the ocean currents, birds and animals scatter the seeds; they are carried to regions where the normal seeds will not thrive, but where the sports may. When the latter brings forth its first and second and