SELECTIVE EVOLUTION 227 



To go back to our cherry seedling, now six 

 inches above the ground, if we were to depend 

 on nature's processes, by careful planting and 

 cultivation we might, with care, produce cher- 

 ries in seven years, but, by the above method, we 

 shall have our cherry crosses in 1920 instead of 

 in 1927 five hundred of them all on a single 

 tree, so that they can be plucked and laid out, 

 first, for a visual selection, to select the ones 

 which conform to our ideas of color, size, and 

 beauty; and, second, for selection through taste 

 to find the one, or the two, or the dozen among 

 them which come the nearest the ideal of oui 

 original mental blue print. 



Perhaps of five hundred cherries spread be- 

 fore us none may fit the blue print; or perhaps 

 one or two approximating it may show signs 

 of further improvements which ought to be 

 made. 



Eliminate the rest, and start afresh with these 

 two begin at the very beginning with them 

 again grow more seedlings, produce quick fruit 

 through grafting, and select again. 



Every little while I have, as the neighbors 

 choose to call it, a $10,000 bonfire. 



In such a bonfire there might be 499 cherry 

 plants out of the five hundred which we have 

 just matie; there would be 19,999 rose bushes 



