TWENTY-THREE POTATO SEEDS 
AND 
WHAT THEY TAUGHT 
A GLIMPSE AT 
THE INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY 
HE springtime buds unfold into leaves 
before our eyes—without our seeing them 
unfold. We have grown accustomed to 
look for bare limbs in March; to find them hidden 
by heavy foliage in May; and because the process 
is slow and tedious, and because it goes on always, 
everywhere about us, we are apt to count it 
commonplace. 
Just as we can understand that the tree in our 
yard, responding to its environment—to the April 
showers, to the warm noons of May, to the heat 
of summer and to the final chill of fall—has 
completed a transformation in a year, so, too, 
can we more easily understand the gradual trans- 
formation of the cactus in an age. So, too, can 
we realize that the individual steps between the 
first ineffectual hairy protuberance, and the final 
[VoLumE I—Cnapter II] 
