PLANNING A NEW PLANT 203 



The seed thus secured will be planted next 

 season, and in due course we shall have a seedling 

 which, when grafted on another tree to speed its 

 maturing, will come to blossoming time after 

 another period of waiting and finally show us 

 the first fruits of our experiment. 



From this fruit we shall raise a new generation 

 of seedlings which will reveal to us beyond 

 peradventure a varied assortment of ancestral 

 traits that the parental forms of our first hybridi- 

 zation did not show. And from among these 

 diversified forms we shall be able, by a long 

 series of selections and new combinations, to 

 make our way toward the attainment of our 

 original idea. 



The precise steps and the varying details 

 through which this may be attained will be dis- 

 cussed in other chapters. Here we are concerned 

 only with the general outline, and, this having 

 been presented, we may leave our cherry in this 

 interesting stage of partial construction. 



To be sure we have not apparently advanced 

 very far toward our ideal in these two gener- 

 ations; but in this our case is only comparable, 

 after all, to that of the architect who, when he 

 has planned a building that shall ultimately 

 tower toward the skies, must be content to see 

 the workmen first begin digging in the opposite 



