Cultivated Elementary Species 79 



ling crab. This experiment was made in Min- 

 nesota, and failed wholly. Then he bought a 

 small lot of seeds of apples and crab-apples in 

 Maine and from these the ^' Wealthy " came. 

 There were only about fifty seeds in the lot of 

 crab-apple seed which produced the ' ' Wealthy, ' ' 

 but before this variety was obtained, more than 

 a bushel of seed had been sown. Chance af- 

 forded a species with an unknown taste ; but the 

 growing of many thousands of seedlings of 

 known varieties was not the best means to get 

 something really new. 



Pears are more difficult to improve than ap- 

 ples. They often require six or more genera- 

 tions to be brought from the wild woody state 

 to the ordinary edible condition. But the va- 

 rieties each seem to have a separate origin, as 

 with apples, and the wide range of form and of 

 taste must have been present in the wild state, 

 long before cultivation. Only recently has the 

 improvement of cherries, plums, currants and 

 gooseberries been undertaken with success by 

 Mr. Burbank, and the difference between the 

 wild and cultivated forms has hitherto been 

 very small. All indications point to the exist- 

 ence, before the era of cultivation, of larger or 

 smaller numbers of elementary species. 



The same holds good with many of the larger 

 forage crops and other plants of great indus- 



