76 Selection Docs Not Lead to Origin of Species. 



cies. The combinations are new in cultivation ; but the 

 characters themselves do not owe their origin to it. 



Of course I do not deny the appearance of mutations 

 in cultivation, but so far as 1 have been able to learn 

 personally from the best known breeders these are rela- 

 tively rare occurrences. 



It is impossible to insist too much that the much 

 talked of progress in cultivation is a delusion if the part 

 played by crossing is left out of account or if the results 

 of this crossing are regarded as the effect of selection. 

 And this happens only too often. Hybridization is so 

 much more certain and easy a way than selection of get- 

 ting something new that breeders would nearly always 

 be working against their own interests if they did not 

 expose their plants as freely as possible to natural cross- 

 fertilization. The possibility of crossing should evi- 

 dentlv onlv be excluded when we are concerned with the 

 fixation of races or with methodical selection carried out 

 according to strict principles. But it is only experiments 

 of this kind that have any value for the theory of selec- 

 tion. Unfortunately they are much more rarely carried 

 out, or at least more rarely described than one could 

 wish. 



Most of the brief notes made by breeders on varia- 

 bility, which is apparently considerable, are open to the 

 objection that the seeds in question have been collected 

 from plants fertilized by the wind or by insects. And if, 

 for example, we read through the mass of material col- 

 lected by Darwin, with this in mind, we shall find that 

 much that seemed to be variability or mutability receives 

 a much simpler explanation by supposing that it was the 

 result of crossing or of the collection of seeds from 

 hybrid plants. It will always be found that the number 



