66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



seem to be exactly opposed to each other? All these germs, 

 first of all, have a tendency to reproduce their kind : so that, 

 when we have a germ, we know that from that we shall get 

 something like it : that is the first characteristic. The second 

 is that they have a tendency to vary; that is, while they 

 reproduce their kind, they have a tendency to produce some- 

 thine a little different from themselves; and in this fact 

 — that those living germs have the power to reproduce their 

 kind, going on, and giving us the same kind of form, and at 

 the same time varying so as to give different forms — we have 

 the foundation of our science and encouragement in all our 

 labor in agriculture. Given these two things, — permanency, 

 so that we may be sure, when we put the seed into the soil, we 

 shall have the same thing in kind spring up that we put there ; 

 and also variation, so as to give us a little different form, — 

 we can take the seeds of that plant, and the plants produced 

 by its seeds will be likely to vary in the same direction ; and 

 so, going on farther and farther, we shall secure different 

 varieties. Now, Darwin says, that taking these germs, with 

 these two characteristics, — first, of reproducing their kind, 

 and, second, of variation, — and giving them time enough, 

 Nature has worked out all these results which we see ; that 

 all these different forms have come from those two character- 

 istics of plants by the operation of a principle which he calls 

 " natural selection." I may have time, before I get through 

 this lecture, to illustrate the action of " natural selection." 



Another theory which is constantly confounded with this 

 is the evolution theory proper, — the theory held by such 

 men as Mivart. It is that all these forms started from germs 

 having just exactly the two characteristics which Darwin 

 ascribes to them, but that, so far from developing in all pos- 

 sible directions, they have in their nature, from the beginning, 

 a principle that determines just how they shall develop, a 

 power which carries them along a specific line ; as Professor 

 Gray, who claims to be a Darwinian, says that plants vary, 

 but, in his judgment, vary on beneficial lines. You see, 

 the moment a man says that, he acknowledges at once that 

 there was some Being who made the germs, that had the 

 notion of doing good to man, and so caused them to vary 

 along beneficial lines. Darwin would not accept any theory 

 of that kind; but an evolutionist may accept it, and say 



