150 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [v. 



untrue. It is indisputable that he obtained many very 

 excellent new varieties of pears, and that in some of his 

 series the generations came into bearing earlier and ear- 

 lier, until, in the fifth generation of certain pears, he 

 was able to secure fruit at three years from the seed. 

 This result was thought to be indubitable proof of his 

 proposition that the first fruits from the newest varieties, 

 — that is, from seedlings, — give the quickest and best 

 results. In the first place, it should be said that the 

 failures were much more numerous than the successes. 

 We are told that he had as many as eighty thousand 

 seedlings growing at one time, but the number of good 

 new varieties which he obtained, whilst aggregating 

 perhaps three or four hundred, was much less than 

 one per cent of the total number of efforts. In the 

 second place. Van Mons' methods of cultivation were 

 such as to hasten precocious fruiting. He conceived 

 the idea — which, unfortunately, is prevalent at the 

 present day — that progress in amelioration of fruits is 

 correlated with an enfeebled or refined condition of the 

 tree. His seedlings were planted close together, and 

 they were kept closely headed -in, in order to lessen 

 their exuberant natural vigor. The seeds were also se- 

 lected from unripe fruits, a process which is now known 

 to result in more or less enfeeblement of the offspring, 

 and consequently in precocity. In the third place, it 

 must be observed that this increasing precocity and 

 amelioration in the succeeding generations are also 

 due to simple selection, and not to any inherent ten- 

 dency towards perfection in the first fruits of seedlings. 

 Probably no experimenter in plants has ever given the 

 world more excellent proofs of the value of judicious 

 and repeated selection than Van Mons has ; and this sin - 



