122 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



kernels of one variety may develop beards while an- 

 other kind may be quite bare of barbs. Then, again, 

 a still other variety may be short in the spike, and 

 another long or multiple, making quite a notable va- 

 riance in brands, though all may pass in the markets 

 of the world as belonging to the great bread pro- 

 ducing staple. 



Sometimes growing wheat is said to be "blasted," 

 the spikes failing to fill with seeds, and the plants pre- 

 senting a grassy appearance. The solution of the 

 matter is that there has been manifest a " reversion," 

 a retrograde movement, a return to graminaceous 

 states to ancestral stock. It is a rare field of grain 

 in which every spike or pericarp is filled with plump 

 kernels ; but light or imperfect seeds in the process of 

 winnowing are blown away with the chaff; thus a se- 

 lective procedure is unconsciously carried on, the best 

 being preserved for food and for the next season's 

 planting. It is common for the agriculturist to select 

 the fairest ears of corn for a coming seedtime, hence a 

 selective process, aiming at betterment, is continually 

 practiced in the development of farm products. 



All varieties of apples, so far as known, have 

 been evolved from crabstock by processes known to 

 horticulturists. The original fruit is small, white, 

 hard, sour and unpalatable, yet how delicious have 

 become the finer grades of fruits in our orchards ! If 

 it were not for the principle of variation in hereditary 

 descent, we might be compelled to eat repulsive crab- 

 apples to the end of time. The laws of evolution 

 have rendered improvement possible, as well as dem- 

 onstrated the vigilance needed to prevent a return to 

 primitive worthlessness. A fruit tree of any kind 

 left untrimmed and untended soon becomes a tangle 



