Evolution : popular lectures before the Brooklyn Ethical Association.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Evolution : popular lectures before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    come from one species since 1802 in France and 1804 in Eng- land. With the varieties of these you are likewise familiar. So also with the hyacinths. The original flower, which was brought from the East, had the petals narrow, wrinkled, pointed, and of a flimsy texture. In 1597 there were four varieties; in 1629 there were eight; in 1768 there were said to be nearly 2000. The number has since, it is be- lieved, very much decreased. Of chrysanthemums, “ it is said that at least 10,000 seedlings have been exhibited for the first time this year. The diversity of form and color displayed is almost infinite, and the various strains have been so intercrossed that the seeds from a single flower- head will often produce examples of the types most widely separated in structure and size, together with intermediate and kindred forms.” These numerous varieties have been produced first by un- conscious, then by conscious as well as by unconscious se- lection. The least of a botanist among us knows enough to gather the finest cluster of mayflowers which she may find by brushing away the dry leaves with which they are covered in the early spring; the best huckleberries or blue- berries that grow upon the mountain top. We all know that there is a difference. So in the orchard or in the gar- den. If there are too many apple-trees, it is not those which bear the finest apples which will be sacrificed; if the rose- bushes need protection from the frost, it is not those which produce the smallest and the most scentless blossoms that will be most tenderly cared for. We know, too, that as we give a more steady supply of moisture and nourishment to the plants which we protect, they improve in quality and increase in variety. Hoiv they will vary, at the outset we do not know, nor do we know when they will vary. But experience has shown us that they will vary, and that by protecting such varieties as please us most, and propagating them, and conversely, by neglecting or destroying those which are less satisfactory, the variations once begun can be increased and made definite upon the lines chosen. From this elementary condition, cultivation has gone for- ward until it has become the artistic representative of a science, and until it almost seems that due diligence only is required to enable the floriculturist to turn out a flower of any pattern which may be suggested to him. It must be borne in mind however, that these results are