IMPROVING TREES AND PLANTS. 443 



His only course will be to follow out his original plan by continually- 

 propagating from the plants which possess in the highest degree 

 the qualities at which he is aiming. There must be no waverings 

 not even a shadow of turning. He must be 



"Like to the Pontic sea, 



Whose icy current and compulsive force, 



Ne'er knows retiring ebb but keeps right on 



To the Propontic and the Hellespont." 

 The dahlia, the potato and the Wealthy apple have been devel- 

 oped in this way. The dahlia came from a little inferior single 

 flower, found on the plateaus of Mexico, growing wild. The potato 

 was a native weed of Peru, fighting its crowding neighbors for a 

 chance to live, and with its little tuber, rivaling a minnie bullet in 

 size and disgustingly sickish in flavor, gave little promise of the 

 important part it was to play in the world's economy. The apple 

 has come down to us from the wild crab, which even an ostrich 

 zvould not eat and could not digest. 



In these three worthless products of the vegetable kingdom man 

 with a purpose and an unlimited stock of perseverence saw his op- 

 portunity, and in the process of time — I almost said "in the fullness 

 of time," but the "fullness has not arrived — there came from the 

 Mexican weed one of the most magnificent flowers with which the 

 great world of today is acquainted, from Peru's insipid specimen 

 one of the half-dozen great agricultural staples which civilization 

 would think it an irreparable loss to cast aside. From that wild 

 crab has been developed the king of all fruits of the earth. 



What has been done can be done again. If the wild crab can 

 be metamorphosed over into a Wealthy apple, it does not admit of 

 a doubt that the best apples of the northwest toda> can be further 

 changed to meet the conditions more fully and to adapt them more 

 completely to their environments, at the same time improving their 

 flavor and their keeping qualities. To do this best in the least time 

 the course to be pursued must be planned with care and judgment. 

 It might be well to select at first, say, eight of the best varieties which 

 are now grown, each one of which excels decidedly in some one qual- 

 ity. Let one be an iron-clad, one very highly flavored, one a beauty 

 to look at, one a good grower, on£ a great bearer, one a long keeper, 

 one fine-grained, juicy and free from mealiness, while the last might 

 represent a spreading habit, long life and all that is desirable in the 

 tree itself. All the chosen varieties should possess as many good 

 qualities as possible, but be particularly excellent in the one named. 

 When the selection is made by a well selected committee appointed 

 for the purpose, and the plan of operations adopted, let the experi- 



