XXII.] IMPROVEMENT HAS BEEN GREAT. 361 



originate uhder the hand of man ; and this has 

 occurred in many instances. (Compare Essay IV.) 



If philosophy teaches us that there is no set or 

 predetermined limit beyond which plants may not 

 progress, reflection must likewise convince every 

 one of us of the essential truth of the same prop- 

 osition. We know that most important cultivated 

 plants have come from a very inferior ancestry ; 

 and some, if not most fruits, have sprung from 

 parents which are scarcely edible to civilized tastes. 

 We have a graphic means of comparing the im- 

 proved side by side with inferior types in the small - 

 leaved, small and austere -fruited and often weak 

 and tender "crabs" and other seedling apples which, 

 however, are only partially reverted to their aboriginal 

 condition. In America, where vast new regions have 

 been settled with great rapidity, we have seen the 

 extension of fruit growing, by means of new and 

 adaptive varieties, into regions which were thought 

 to be unfitted for such purposes but a few years 

 ago. It is a fact that all plants, especially our fruits, 

 have responded with really remarkable facility to 

 all the new demands which our markets and soils 

 and climatic limitations have placed upon them. This 

 response has been in the way of new varieties, 

 and it has, of course, been most marked in those 

 fruits which were comparatively little developed, and 

 to which almost every condition of cultivation and 

 dissemination was new. You will recall the readiness 

 with which the native plums, within forty years, 

 have given us nearly two hundred varieties adapted 

 to a remarkable range of conditions and uses ; and 

 the blackberries and raspberries within a generation 



