SELECTION BY MAN 47 



nary cases. If selection consisted merely in separating some 

 very distinct variety, and breeding from it. the principle would 

 be so obvious as hardly to be worth notice ; but its importance 

 consists in the great effect produced by the accumulation in 

 one direction, during successive generations, of differences 

 absolutely inappreciable by an uneducated eye — differences 

 which I for one have vainly attempted to appreciate. Not 

 one man in a thousand has accuracy of eye and judgment 

 sufficient to become an eminent breeder. If gifted with these 

 qualities, and he studies his subject for years, and devotes his 

 lifetime to it with indomitable perseverance, he will succeed, 

 and may make great improvements ; if he wants any of these 

 qualities, he will assuredly fail. Few would readily believe 

 in the natural capacity and years of practice requisite to be- 

 come even a skilful pigeon-fancier. 



The same principles are followed by horticulturists; but 

 the variations are here often more abrupt. No one supposes 

 'that our choicest productions have been produced by a single 

 variation from the aboriginal stock. We have proofs that 

 this has not been so in several cases in which exact records 

 have been kept; thus, to give a very trifling instance, the 

 steadily increasing size of the common gooseberry may be 

 quoted. We see an astonishing improvement in many flor- 

 ists' flowers, when the flowers of the present day are com- 

 pared with drawings made only twenty or thirty years ago. 

 When a race of plants is once pretty well established, the 

 seed-raisers do not pick out the best plants, but merely go 

 .over their seed-beds, and pull up the "rogues," as they call 

 the plants that deviate from the proper standard. With ani- 

 mals this kind of selection is, in fact, likewise followed; for 

 hardly any one is so careless as to breed from his worst 

 animals. 



In regard to plants, there is another means of observing 

 the accumulated effects of selection — namely, by comparing 

 the diversity of flowers in the different varieties of the same 

 species in the flower-garden ; the diversity of leaves, pods, or 

 tubers, or whatever part is valued, in the kitchen-garden, in 

 comparison with the flowers of the same varieties ; and the 

 diversity of fruit of the same species in the orchard, in com- 

 parison with the leaves and flowers of the same set of vari- 



