IV 
VARIATION UNDER DOMESTICATION 
05 
that killed the flowers and buds of all other kinds of pears. 
Wheat, which is grown over so large a portion of the world, has 
become adapted to special climates. Wheat imported from 
India and sown in good wheat soil in England produced the 
most meagre ears; while wheat taken from France to the 
West Indian Islands produced either wholly barren spikes or 
spikes furnished with two or three miserable seeds, while 
West I ndian seed by its side yielded an enormous harvest. The 
orange was very tender when first introduced into Italy, and 
continued so as long as it was propagated by grafts, but 
when trees were raised from seed many of these were found 
to be hardier, and the orange is now perfectly acclimatised in 
Italy. Sweet-peas (Lathyrus odoratus) imported from England 
to the Calcutta Botanic Gardens produced few blossoms and 
no seed; those from France flowered a little better, but still 
produced no seed, but plants raised from seed brought from 
Darjeeling in the Himalayas, but originally derived from 
England, flower and seed profusely in Calcutta. 1 
An observation by Mr. Darwin himself is perhaps even 
more instructive. He says: “On 24th May 1864 there 
was a severe frost in Kent, and two rows of scarlet runners 
(Phaseolus multiHorus) in my garden, containing 390 plants of 
the same age and equally exposed, were all blackened and 
killed except about a dozen plants. In an adjoining row of 
Fulmer’s dwarf bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) one single plant 
escaped. A still more severe frost occurred four days after¬ 
wards, and of the dozen plants which had previously escaped 
only three survived; these were not taller or more vigorous 
than the other young plants, but they escaped completely, 
with not even the tips of their leaves browned. It was im¬ 
possible to behold these three plants, with their blackened, 
withered, and dead brethren all around them, and not see at 
a glance that they differed widely in their constitutional power 
of resisting frost.’ 
The preceding sketch of the variation that occurs among 
domestic animals and cultivated plants shows how wide it is 
in range and how great in amount; and we have good reason 
to believe that similar variation extends to all organised beings. 
In the class of fishes, for example, we have one kind which has 
1 Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. ii. pp. 307-311. 
