Preserving Variations 175 



disuse leads to atrophy. Inhabitants of rookeries become 

 pale. Sedentary occupations are associated with flabby mus- 

 cles and sluggish intestines. Lamarck assumed that these 

 effects of use and disuse became in time permanent charac- 

 teristics of the race. There is a tendency in general for edu- 

 cators and sociologists to take for granted the cumulative 

 effect of environment in modifying the type. Those who 

 are more familiar with plants and animals as they naturally 

 live and reproduce from generation to generation are inclined 

 to be more skeptical about the transmission of traits acquired 

 in the lifetime of the individual as a result of external in- 

 fluence, or of use or disuse. 



Preserving Variations 



Luther Burbank produced dozens of " improved " va- 

 rieties. Many of these have become well established com- 

 mercial strains. We are all today enjoying potatoes (unless 

 we are dieting) and berries and flowers and garden truck 

 and grains that did not exist two generations ago, as a result 

 of the work done by Burbank and others. . 



Whether we call these new strains merely varieties or 

 new species may be a purely academic question. In whatever 

 detail they are superior to the ancestral strain, we have shared 

 in the benefits. From a pragmatic point of view the novelties 

 are sufficiently distinct to warrant separate names, not only 

 for the benefit of the dealer or promoter or catalogue. maker, 

 but for the benefit of every ultimate consumer. The manu- 

 facturer, at any rate, knows whether he prefers cotton with 

 long staple or with short staple. The farmer knows whether 

 he prefers a wheat that will withstand frost, he knows the 

 advantage of a grain that will not succumb to the rust. 

 Some people at least know what kind of melon they prefer 

 or what kind of apple or corn or grape. Some people even 

 pretend to know one kind of tobacco from another. 



The improvers of the plants have contributed a great 

 deal of material value. They have added to the enjoyment 



