THE AMARYLLIS 253 



in diameter, somewhat as a man is accounted 

 large if he exceeds six feet in height. 



But several of my new giant amaryllis, with 

 their ten-inch spread of petals, are very anom- 

 alous and extraordinary flowers. They occupy 

 among flowers a position not very different from 

 that which would be occupied among men by a 

 ten-foot giant. 



If no ten-foot giant has ever appeared, it is 

 probably not so much because the human race 

 does not have potentialities of producing such a 

 specimen, but that experiments in selective 

 breeding of men for the quality of size, compa- 

 rable to the hybridizations that produced the 

 giant amaryllis, have never been carried out 

 during a series of generations. 



BEEEDINQ GIANTS 



Everyone has heard of the attempt that was 

 once made by a Prussian king to develop a race 

 of giants by selective breeding. 



As the story goes, the king marshaled all the 

 tall men he could find into a special regiment, 

 and sent inspectors over his kingdom in search 

 of tall women as wives for his tall soldiers. He 

 intended thus to produce a royal bodyguard of 

 giants that should be the astonishment of the 

 world. 



