THE STONELESS PLUM 



AN EXPERIMENT IN TEACHING 

 A PLANT ECONOMY 



I WAS exhibiting some examples of the rem- 

 nants of stones in various specimens of my 

 new plums to a visitor one day, indicating a 

 stone that was like the crescent of the new moon 

 in shape. 



"This," I said, "is the plum as it was when 

 the stone was only partially taken out of it. And 

 this" indicating another one with only a frag- 

 ment of stone not as large as a grain of wheat 

 "is the same plum four or five generations later." 

 The visitor laughed. "That/ 7 said he, "reminds 

 me of the museum that showed a skull labeled 

 'The skull of William Shakespeare,' and another 

 labeled 'The skull of William Shakespeare when 

 he was a boy.' There is this difference, however, 

 that Shakespeare's head, according to the mu- 

 seum record, got larger as he advanced in age, 

 whereas your plum stone became smaller." And 

 then, becoming quite serious, my visitor inspected 



35 



