THE WINTER RHUBARB 93 



have proved quite unmarketable. The plant was 

 admitted to have no great value in New Zealand. 

 Indeed, in point of value the imported plant bore 

 no comparison with ordinary pieplant of our 

 gardens. 



It was solely and exclusively the quality of 

 winter-bearing that made the plant appeal to me 

 and suggested the possibility of developing from 

 it a valuable addition to our list of garden 

 vegetables. 



My original stock of half a dozen plants soon 

 increased to a hundred or more. These plants 

 produced seed abundantly in successive years, 

 and all this seed was carefully planted and 

 the seedlings that grew from it, to the num- 

 ber of hundreds of thousands, were closely 

 examined and tested as to various desirable 

 qualities. 



From among the thousands I was able to select 

 here and there a plant that showed exceptional 

 qualities of growth, standing well up above its 

 companions of the same age. Of course selection 

 was made of the plants showing this exceptional 

 virility, and in the course of a few years I had 

 thus developed, by persistent selection, a race of 

 plants that grew r with extreme rapidity, and to 

 a size, by comparison, quite dwarfing that of the 

 original parent stock. 



