SELECTIVE EVOLUTION 223 



neighboring trees, to effect specific crosses with 

 the certainty which we have assured? 



Now, with new heredities bundled up in our 

 five hundred cherry stones, we plant them under 

 every favoring condition in our shallow box, and 

 unless mishap or accident intervenes, we get new 

 cherry trees from all, or, at worst, lose but a 

 few. 



And now, wdth our sprouted cherry seedlings 

 six inches or eight in height, with no man knows 

 how many thousand years of nature's processes 

 cut out, we come to one of the most important 

 short cuts of all quick fruiting, so that there 

 may be quick selection. 



Grafting is no new practice. 



Virgil wrote verses about it: 



But thou shalt lend 



Grafts of rude arbute unto the walnut tree, 

 Shalt bid the unfruitful plane sound apples bear, 

 Chestnuts the beech, the ash blow white with the pear, 

 And, under the elm, the sow on acorns fare. 



Pliny, evidently a much more practical man, 

 within the same century, describes a cleft graft 

 and bespeaks the following precautions : that the 

 /stock must be that of a tree suitable for the pur- 

 pose ; that the cleft must be taken from one that 

 is proper for grafting; that the incision must not 



