THE APRICOT 271 



grower, pointing out to him the particular trees 

 in his orchard that tend to produce flowers hav- 

 ing their structure thus favorably modified. 



This method of selection would have obvious 

 advantages over the method of planting trees at 

 random in the colder regions, and waiting the 

 selective influence of frost. 



If the fruit grower could gain such informa- 

 tion as this in advance, thus selecting only the 

 hardier individuals and subsequently making 

 selection of the best among these, he might 

 obviously hope to advance with greater rapidity. 

 And as the task at best is a tedious one, the plant 

 developer should welcome any aid that may be 

 offered, from whatever source. 



As yet, however, we have no assurance that 

 definite assistance can be given us by the micro- 

 scopists. It may be that the physical conditions 

 that determine hardiness or sensitiveness in the 

 flower are dependent on molecular arrangements 

 that lie far beyond the limits of microscopic 

 vision. 



In that case, we shall be obliged to depend 

 upon the common method of selection, picking 

 out plants that have proved somewhat hardier 

 than their fellows, and being on the alert at all 

 stages to discover the correlations as to color or 

 form of stem or leaf that are associated with 



