HOW TO PRODUCE NEW FLO AVERS. 13 



bers of our parks and gardens. It is a great effort on the part of the 

 plant to produce all these spines, and when this effort is made unneces- 

 sary, the plant will at once become more docile and pliable, and can be 

 easily led into almost any useful occupation in which plants are employed. 



Koses, blackberries, raspberries, and gooseberries can also be made as 

 perfectly thornless as strawberries or apples are by the same education and 

 individual selection: At present, however, the authors of new fruits and 

 flowers are fully employed in improving the size, abundance, and per- 

 fection of form, color, and fragrance in flowers, and the abundance and 

 lusciousness of fruits; otherwise, the thorns would have been eliminated 

 long ago. 



Everything which we now have in fruits, flowers, vegetables, or grains 

 has been brought to its present state of perfection by the same educa- 

 tion and selection, which is only a turning of the forces of nature into 

 new channels for the welfare of mankind. By the patient application 

 of these educative influences, the wheat, corn, rice, and other plants which 

 were once wild grasses, have been induced to produce enormous quanti- 

 ties of nutritious eggs, which, when divested of their innutritions shells 

 or coverings, furnish food for all the earth. Our fruits and flowers 

 have all traveled the same road, ever upward and onward under the ten- 

 der care of the horticultural missionaries of the past (forerunners of 

 civilization), who really knew but very little of the possibilities of plant 

 life or of the transcendent forces which nature has placed in the keeping 

 of plants for the growth and uplifting of humanity. Plant life is so 

 common all about us that we seldom stop to think that almost every 

 good we have on' earth is produced by their silent but all-powerful forces. 



Only lately have we learned how readily we can train, combine, and 

 guide these forces into endless useful and beautiful forms, which even 

 the imagination can not conceive. The careful investigator along these 

 lines is often amazed at the wealth of new forms, new qualities, and new 

 colors of fruits and flowers which nature lavishly showers upon him, 

 seemingly almost by the asking when once we know the way and apply 

 ourselves to it. It takes, however, an intimate knowledge of the affinities 

 of plants, a keen perception of the useful forms when produced, a sweet 

 and abiding patience which knows no end, and, to carry on extensively, 

 the purse of a multi-millionaire, but any one can take in hand any one 

 plant, and in a few years produce wonders in variation and improve- 

 ment, and at the same time be gaining patience, knowledge, health, 

 happiness, and personal discipline, all of which are far above price. And 

 if a new and beautiful flower or fruit is produced which all the world 

 wants, what a happiness has been secured, not only for the author, but 

 an added legacy of sunshine and health for all the world for all time 

 to come! Are not these inducements enough to make one wish to help 



