EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION AMONGST PLANTS. 99 



knows, as a matter of common observation and practice, that 

 this is true of plants. He knows that varieties with the most 

 marked featui'es are passing before him like a moving panorama. 

 He knows that nearly every plant which has been long cultivated, 

 has become so profoundly and irrevocably modified that people 

 are disputing as to what wild species it came from. Consider 

 that we cannot certainly identify the original species of the apple, 

 peach, plum, cherry, orange, lemon, wine grape, sweet potato, 

 Indian corn, melon, bean, pumpkin, wheat, chrysanthemum, and 

 nearly or quite a hundred other common cultivated plants. It is 

 immaterial whether they are called species or varieties. They are 

 new fprms. Some of them are so distinct that they have been 

 made the types of genera. Here is the experiment to prove that 

 evolution is true, worked out upon a scale and with a definiteness 

 of detail which the boldest experimenter could not hope to attain, 

 were he to live a thousand years. The horticulturist is the only 

 man in the world whose distinct business and profession is evolu- 

 tion. He, of all other men, has the experimental px*oof that 

 species come and go. 



Discussion. 



Rev. Calvin Terry said that a minister once announced to his 

 congregation, and advertised in the local papers, that he would 

 preach on evolution. His people expected to hear a scientific 

 discussion of the subject. But the preacher started with a living 

 man in view, and confined his remarks to showing the possibility, 

 the need, and the duty of everyone to strive to become a better 

 man, or a better woman, — every Christian to become a better 

 Christian. The preacher's evolution meant, simply growing "in 

 grace. A negro preacher undertook to give an account of the 

 creation of man. He said, in dramatic style : " God wet de clay, 

 and formed de man, and set him up ag'in' de fence to dry." One 

 of the congregation, having more sense than the preacher, inter- 

 rupted him and said: "But massa, who put dat fence dar?" 

 Some, who call themselves scientific evolutionists maintain that 

 somehow things make themselves, and that all existing organisms 

 have been developed from some very low substance called proto- 

 plasm. Ever, in science, common sense requires us to believe 

 that we must have something to begin with. We cannot under- 

 take to say that things have come into being without a Creator, — 

 a self-existing, eternal cause. These philosophers sound the deep 



