238 THE SURVIVAL OF THE UNLIKE. [xi. 



if we are to arrive at just conclusions respecting 

 the origin and uses of synonymous names. 



In approaching the subject, we must first deter- 

 mine the uses to the vegetable kingdom of repro- 

 duction by means of seeds. Inasmuch as all plants 

 have, or may have, the power of reproducing their 

 kind by means of buds or roots or other asexual 

 parts, it must follow that the complex and highly 

 specialized seed or sexual reproduction serves some 

 further purpose than mere multiplication of the 

 plant. It is now considered that this second and 

 most important office of sex is to introduce new 

 features into the offspring, so that, no two of them 

 being alike, all seedlings may tend to subsist in 

 the resulting struggle for existence because each one 

 may be able to live in conditions more or less un- 

 suited to all the others. So it comes that seedlings 

 are more variable or diverse amongst themselves than 

 budded or cutting- made plants are, and this, as you 

 know, is the reason why any variety of fruit — that 

 is, any particular seedling plant — must be propagated 

 by buds rather than by seeds if it is to be kept 

 "true to name." Yet there is some variation oi- 

 diversity amongst all budded plants. All individuals 

 are unlike : while all Baldwin apple trees, for 

 example, make globular heads and bear a large rod 

 winter fruit, there is much minor variation in tin- 

 shape of top and in size, coloring and season of 

 the fruit. You have all observed that no two trees 

 in your orchard are alike. 



Now, therefore, if it is held that every seedling 

 is a new variety simply because it is more or less 

 different from its parents, in like manner it must 



