78 Selection Does Not Lead to Origin of Species. 



The nurserymen then usually buy the novelties from the 

 customers in question at a considerable price. As a rule 

 4 or 5 years elapse before such a novelty is put on the 

 market. During this time, so we are told, it has been 

 made constant by selection. It would be more correct 

 to say that they are freed from the adulterating effects 

 of free crossing. For the selection consists in weeding 

 out the so-called rogues at the time of flowering (sup- 

 posing that we are dealing with flowering plants) in order 

 to save seed only from the pure individuals. But if we 

 are dealing with vegetables the selection takes place long 

 before they are in flower, so that there is no danger of 

 crossing in this case. 



These rogues are nothing more than hybrids resulting 

 from free crossing in the preceding summer. I have 

 often had the opportunity of watching this weeding out. 

 It takes place at the height of the flowering season. The 

 pure individuals may therefore have been already partly 

 fertilized by the rogues ; and for this reason some of the 

 seed for the next year may have been contaminated. 

 The sole object of the selection is to reduce the mixture 

 with other forms to a minimum ; the pollination is left to 

 insects from the first generation onwards, so that cross- 

 fertilization always takes place. I have never been able 

 to find that in ordinary cases selection had any other 

 object than the purification of the new race from the 

 effects of mixed ancestry. 



The use the gardener makes of his 4 or 5 years is 

 to increase his stock of seed suflicientlv to make it worth 

 while to put it on the market. This is in fact a far more 

 important matter than the process of purification that we 

 have been speaking of. As soon as the requisite quantum 

 of seed is obtained it is put on the market. Absolute 



