220 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [x. 



We must determine if the opinion of Goethe and St. 

 Hilaire is true, that the sum of activity in any plant 

 is fixed with a variation occurring only within the lim- 

 its ; or if we can force the plant beyond its original 

 bounds and increase the sum of its activities. We must 

 determine if the independent variation of members 

 which Wallace has found to exist in nature obtains 

 also in the garden, or if, once inside the garden 

 fence, the plant assumes a law of development in 

 parallelisms. It therefore becomes a philosophical 

 question. 



Now, there are about seven characters which are 

 commonly held to be correlated with marked increase 

 in quality, three of which belong to the fruit itself, and 

 the remaining four to the plant as a whole. These are : 

 Decrease in size and seed -production ; loss of high color 

 in the fruit ; and tenderness, lack of vigor, short life, 

 and unproductiveness in the plant. It is hardly neces- 

 sary, before this audience, to define what I mean by 

 high quality. I simply refer to that combination of 

 fine texture, tenderness and pronounced agreeable flavor 

 which renders fruits fit for the dessert. 



There are two methods of discussing my subject, the 

 statistical and the philosophical. Fortunately, statistics 

 are at hand for our purpose. I have selected as the 

 basis of my investigation the well knowTi Fruit Cata- 

 logue of the Michigan Horti(;ultural Society. This is 

 almost wholly the labor of T. T. Lyon, whose dis- 

 criminating judgment upon the merits of fruits is not 

 excelled in this country. In this catalogue all the 

 varieties are graded upon a decimal scale in three dis- 

 tinct categories — dessert, cooking, and market. Each 

 variety is also rated in size and color. Mr. Lyon's 



