PRACTICAL POLLINATION 



A SURVEY OF WORKING METHODS 



OXCE upon a time it may have been 

 about the year five million B. C. a plant 

 imbued with nascent wisdom made a tacit 

 compact with a fellow creature of the world at 

 large that was fraught with strange and fateful 

 meanings for races of beings yet unborn. 



The fellow creature in question was at that 

 time probably the most highly developed citizen 

 of the world, although in modern terminology he 

 would be termed "merely an insect." The com- 

 pact the plant made with him was to the effect 

 that one should manufacture sweet nectar and 

 freely supply it as food; and that the other in 

 return should carry the fructifying pollen grains 

 from flower to flower. 



Doubtless no more important compact was 

 ever entered into in the history of animate crea- 

 tion before or since. 



For out of this compact grew the rivalry that 

 stimulated development and made possible the 



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