NEW VARIETIES. 233 



came more and more pronounced, until at last the shape of 

 the root he sought was attained. 



Buckman took a wild parsnip and after several years de- 

 veloped an improved form, which he called the Student. This 

 was taken in hand by the firm of Sutton and Son and, after 

 some further improvement, put upon the market. It was of 

 this variety that Henslow remarked: "It still remains, after 

 more than forty years, the best parsnip in the trade." 



The tomato offers a good example of what can be wrought 

 by intelligent selection. Livingston, who did so much for 

 the tomato, depended wholly upon this principle. Every man 

 who is now of middle age must remember when the tomato 

 was a very different fruit from what it is to-day irregular 

 in contour, deeply creased, in many instances appearing to 

 be composed of several small units knotted into one. In look- 

 ing over his growing tomatoes, which were still of all sizes 

 and shapes, Mr. Livingston noticed a plant having distinct 

 characteristics and bearing heavy foliage. It was unlike any 

 other in the field, or that he had ever seen. Its fruit was 

 uniformly smooth, but too small to be of market value. While 

 meditating upon his discovery the thought occurred to him 

 like an inspiration, "Why not select special tomato plants in- 

 stead of specimen tomatoes?" This he proceeded to do, the 

 result finally consummating in a blood-red variety subsequently 

 everywhere known as "Livingston's Perfection." 



But whatever human selection may have done during time 

 past in the improvement of varieties and doubtless all of our 

 cultivated plants have been greatly improved by this means 

 on their way down to us through the populous centuries 

 the subject seems only now to have become sufficiently un- 

 derstood and the practice only now to be carried on with a 



