392 NATURAL SELECTION. 



best seeds of the finest specimens of fruit, and plant- 

 ing them for successive generations. Nature uses 

 this method more or less in the production of 

 varieties in the vegetable kingdom as well as the 

 animal. In the latter, the strongest and most 

 perfect animals conquer and slay those which are 

 inferior, according to a merciful provision of Prov- 

 idence, and thus a strong and healthy progeny is 

 secured, and the race prevented from deterioration. 

 Just so, it is generally only the strong, vigorous 

 seedling which can resist all the obstacles which it 

 meets in its growth ; and such will overshadow and 

 kill all which are of an inferior character about it. 

 This selection is to be distinguished from that prac- 

 tised by Van Mons, in that he planted seeds of the 

 wild fruit, and endeavored to produce valuable and 

 stronger varieties, free from the diseases peculiar to 

 cultivated fruits by amelioration and careful culti- 

 vation, upon the hypothesis that our table-fruits 

 originated from these wild types. 



Van Mons commenced his experiments upon an- 

 nuals and roses, when less than twenty years old, 

 and he gives as the result of his observations — 



That successive generations remove the progeny 

 further from their condition as wild plants, and 

 make them more susceptible to variation according 

 as it is repeated often and with the least interrup- 

 tion. That a plant once entered upon variation, 

 does not return, if, through uninterrupted genera- 



