70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



large flowers, sacrificing its frmt ; but you expect that its 

 line of improvement will be in the direction of large and 

 delicious pulp. If improved flowers are produced, it is a very 

 rare exception. 



Let us take another illustration, nearer still ; take the po- 

 tato and tomato. You know very well that they are botanic 

 brothers. Even the potato-bugs know tliis, because they 

 will eat tomato-vines when they are driven to it. What is 

 the line of development in each? You know the potato has 

 potato-balls on the top of the vines ; and they correspond ex- 

 actly to tomatoes in structure : they are the same thing botani- 

 cally as the tomato. The potato has been carried over a great 

 portion of the globe. See the number of varieties that have 

 been produced in different parts of the world. If you take 

 ten thousand seeds of the potato, and plant them, what do 

 you expect to produce ? Do you expect to produce plants 

 that will bear large, edible fruit on the top ? No. You ex- 

 pect that the plant will vary in the line of its tubers always. 

 We have to-day hundreds of varieties of the potato, and there 

 is no end to the number of kinds that you can produce ; but 

 the plant always develops in the same line. How is it with 

 the tomato ? If you plant its seeds, you expect that the fruit 

 on the top of the plant will vary. Certainly. Nobody ever 

 heard of a tomato varying, except in the line of that fruit 

 on the top: that fruit is its utility. You have the potato 

 varying in the line of its underground stems or tubers : that 

 is its utility. I might go on illustrating this principle, and 

 give example after example of plants that are close together 

 botanieally, developing in different lines. Those who first 

 cultivated these plants did not know what the leading idea 

 of the plant was. They saw this beautiful flower, and they 

 said, " Let us save it," because aU men, even savages, have 

 an appreciation of the beautiful ; and they began to cultivate 

 it, and it began to develop in its own line. Then the fruit- 

 bearing plant attracted attention, and secured cultivation for 

 its utility ; and it developed in its line. And the result is 

 what we see in beautiful flowers and delicious fruits. 



Now, how far can this be carried ? Tliis variation is first 

 for the benefit of the plant. It is for the purpose of adapt- 

 ing the plant to the earth: that seems to be the primary 

 purpose of this variation. I am speaking as though there 



