ON ADAPTATION 
On the experiment farm at Santa Rosa, there 
grow two ordinary looking pear trees’ which 
amplify the thought. 
One of these trees produces large, juicy, soft, 
aromatic, luscious, easily digested pears—a delight 
to the eye and to the palate. 
The other produces small, hard, bitter, indi- 
gestible fruit, the very opposite in every way of 
our idea of what a pear should be. 
Looking at these trees side by side, it would be 
difficult to realize that their fruit could be so differ- 
ent. Both show the unmistakable characteristics 
of the pear tree—the pear tree shape, the pear tree 
branches, the pear tree leaves, the pear tree blos- 
soms. In their fruit alone do they differ. 
Since these two pear trees illustrate an impor- 
tant point, let us begin at the beginning: 
The pear, it seems, was first discovered in 
eastern Europe or western Asia. It was there, in 
Eurasia, some two thousand years ago, that man 
first realized that this fruit was good to eat. 
Coming to us, thus, out of obscurity, the pear, 
during these twenty centuries, has spread to the 
east, and to the west, till it has completely encircled 
the globe—a slow process, but one which takes 
place in every desirable fruit which is discovered 
or produced. 
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