XIV.] PLANTS START EQUAL. 257 



edly true that every plant has individuality from the 

 first, — that is, that it differs in some minute de- 

 gree from all other plants, the same as all animals 

 possess differences of personality ; but these initial 

 individual differeiu^es are often entirely inadequate to 

 account for the wide divergence which may occur be- 

 tween the members of any brood before they reach 

 their maturity. 



The greater number of plants, as I have said, start 

 practically equal, but they may soon become widely 

 unlike. Now, everyone knows that these final unlike - 

 nesses are direct adaptations to the circumstances in 

 which the plant lives. It is the effort to adapt itself 

 to circ;umstances which gives rise to the variation. The 

 whole structure of agriculture is built upon this fact. 

 All the value of tillage, fertilizing and pruning, lies in 

 the modification which the plant is made to undergo. 

 Observe, if you will, the wheat fields of any harvest 

 time. Some fields are "uneven," as the farmers say; 

 and you observe that this unevenness is plainly asso- 

 ciated with the condition of the land. On dry knolls, 

 the straw is short and the plant early ; on moister and 

 looser lands the plant is tall, later, with long, well -filled 

 heads; on very rich spots, the plants have had too much 

 nitrogen and they grow too tall and "sappy," and the 

 wheat "lodges" and does not fill. That is, the plants 

 started equal, but they ended unequal. Another field of 

 wheat may be very uniform throughout; it is said to be 

 "a good stand," which only means, as one can observe 

 for himself, that the soil is uniform in quality and was 

 equally well prepared in all parts. That is, the plants 

 started equal, and they remained equal because the 

 conditions were equal. Every crop that was ever 



17 SUE. 



