SPECIAL LINE OF DEVELOPMENT. 69 



has caused me a good deal of study. When you look over 

 plants, you will find they divide themselves naturally, not 

 botanically, into two great groups, according to their lines 

 of development. If you arrange all your plants botanically, 

 you will find that those two groups that I am about to men- 

 tion cut through the great botanical divisions. Plants can be 

 divided into two great groups, one of which always develops 

 in the line of utility (I am using " utility " in its common 

 sense), and the other always develops in the line of beauty. 

 Now, having made that statement, I wish to call your atten- 

 tion to certain plants well known. I will take, for my first 

 illustration, the apple. You see that I come round to the 

 apple, with which I began. Take an apple and a rose. All 

 of you have observed enough to know that the apple-blossom 

 is a little rose in structure, that the apple belongs to the rose 

 family. "We do not know how long the rose and apple have 

 been cultivated ; but we have evidence of the cultivation of 

 both of them farther back than history goes. In those old 

 villages covered by water in Switzerland, we find evidence of 

 the existence of the apple and the rose also. Going back 

 just as far as we can go, and tracing them up to the present 

 time, we know that apples and roses have been cultivated in 

 almost all parts of the world. You know that to-day there 

 are thousands of varieties of both, and you know that you 

 can produce other thousands. I would like to know if any 

 man ever heard of an apple-tree developing in the line of 

 beauty ; that is, developing its flowers so that they became 

 large and beautiful roses. It is barely possible; but the 

 natural line of the apple is fruit. I would like to know if 

 any man has ever seen a rose that developed large, delicious 

 fruit. Is not all its development in the line of beauty? 

 When you take a flower to cultivate, do you not expect that 

 the plant, when it varies at all, will vary in the line of 

 beauty, that it will give you a larger and more beautiful 

 flower ? You never expect that a large fruit will be devel- 

 oped there. In the wild rose you will see tlie fruit corre- 

 sponds with the apple : it is not a large one, to be sure ; but 

 why does it happen that the rose and the apple, which are 

 botanically alike, are developed in such entirely different 

 directions? If you plant ten thousand apple-seeds, you do 

 not expect to raise a single tree that will produce simply 



