30 UNCONSCIOUS SELECTION. 



by crossing, may plainly be recognized in the increased size 

 and beauty which we now see in the varieties of the heart's- 

 ease, rose, pelargonium, dahlia, and other plants, when 

 compared with the older varieties or with their parent- 

 stocks. No one would ever expect to get a first-rate hearts- 

 ease or dahlia from the seed of a wild plant. No one 

 would expect to raise a first-rate melting pear from the 

 seed of the wild pear, though he might succeed from a 

 poor seedling growing wild, if it had come from a garden- 

 stock. The pear, though cultivated in classical times, 

 appears, from Pliny's description, to have been a fruit of 

 very inferior quality. I have seen great surprise expressed 

 in horticultural works at the wonderful skill of gardeners j 

 in having produced such splendid results from such poor 

 materials ; but the art has been simple, and, as far as the 

 final result is concerned, has been followed almost uncon- 

 sciously. It has consisted in always cultivating the best 

 known variety, sowing its seeds, and, when a slightly better 

 variety chanced to appear, selecting it, and so onward. 

 But the gardeners of the classical period, who cultivated 

 the best pears which they could procure, never thought 

 what splendid fruit we should eat; though we owe our 

 excellent fruit in some small degree to their having natur- 

 ally chosen and preserved the best varieties they could any- 

 where find. 



A large amount of change, thus slowly and unconsciously 

 accumulated, explains, as I believe, the well-known fact, 

 that in a number of cases we cannot recognize, and there- 

 fore do not know, the wild parent-stocks of the plants which 

 have been longest cultivated in our flower and kitchen gar- 

 dens. If it has taken centuries or thousands of years to 

 improve or modify most of our plants up to their present 

 standard of usefulness to man, we can understand how it is 

 that neither Australia, the Cape of Good Hope, nor any 

 other region inhabited by quite uncivilized man, has afforded 

 us a single plant worth culture. It is not that these coun- 

 tries, so rich in species, do not by a strange chance possess 

 the aboriginal stocks of any useful plants, but that the 

 native plants have not been improved by continued selec- 

 tion up to a standard of perfection comparable with that 

 acquired by the plants in countries anciently civilized. 



In regard to the domestic animals kept by uncivilized 

 man, it should not be overlooked that they almost always 

 have to struggle for their own food, at least during cer- 



