FIXING GOOD TRAITS 



How TO HOLD A RESULT ONCE 

 ACHIEVED 



IT IS traditional that you cannot teach an old 

 dog new tricks. The maxim applies with full 

 force to old plants. You may bend the twig 

 and make a permanent twist in the future tree; 

 but the hardened stock of the matured branch 

 will return persistently if bent, and will break 

 rather than change its form. 



Now there is something like the same differ- 

 ence in flexibility between young and old races of 

 plants. Here is a variety of plant that has been 

 developed in the orchard or garden, under man's 

 influence, in the course of the past few genera- 

 tions. It tends to vary, and its progeny may be 

 made to adopt themselves to different conditions; 

 by selection, they may be developed into divers 

 and sundry new races. 



But yonder pine or palm tree has no such in- 

 clination to vary. Its ancestors have remained 

 substantially unchanged, true to their racial type, 



