ON HURRYING EVOLUTION 
the rains, and the frosts—who shall say that 
our influence, inestimably greater than any other 
influence in the life of a plant—is not an intended 
part of progress in the Scheme of Things? 
In hurrying evolution, we can, and do, play a 
more important part, even, than that of bringing 
about crosses, or hybrids, which the bees or the 
birds would never make. 
The greatest service which we render toward 
the advancement of plant life is that of selection, 
endless, skillful selection. 
The pink daisy was really, after all, the result, 
principally, of selection. The important thing we 
did was not to bring a mass of daisies together 
for the bees to work on; the important thing was 
to select orange daisies, and white daisies, with 
the purpose of producing a pink one. Then, with 
a bedful of variations, we selected again—selected, 
this time, for the shade we wanted, and destroyed 
the rest. 
Afterward, with that pink daisy, we began 
a still further course of selection, selecting the 
largest, the hardiest, the tallest; and no matter 
how long we might continue to grow pink daisies, 
we should keep on selecting, selecting, selecting— 
each step in our selection, because it has the 
human mind behind it—because it is actuated by 
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