3i 8 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



No new evidence either to help the Darwinian factors to their death- 

 bed, or to strengthen their lease on life; for the 'man' factor in all 

 the selecting phenomena in Burbank's gardens excludes all 'natural' 

 factors. Here are some of Burbank's own words, touching these 

 matters that scientific men are particularly interested in, in his work : 



" 'All scientists have found that preconceived notions, dogmas, 

 and all personal prejudice must be set aside, listening patiently, 

 quietly, and reverently to the lessons one by one which mother 

 nature has to teach, shedding light on that which before was a 

 mystery, so that all who will may see and know. 



" 'Crossing gives the raiser of new plants the only means of 

 uniting the best qualities of each, but just as often the worst quali- 

 ties of each are combined and transmitted, so that to be of any 

 value it must be followed by rigid and persistent selection, and in 

 crossing, as in budding and grafting, the affinities can only be 

 demonstrated by actual test. 



" 'All wild plants of any species are under almost identical envi- 

 ronments, having their energies taxed to the utmost in the fierce 

 struggle for existence. Any great variation under such circum- 

 stances is not likely to occur, and is much more likely to be stamped 

 out at once by its struggling competitors, unless the variation should 

 be of special use in competition, in which case it will survive, and 

 all others may be supplanted by it. Thus we see how new species 

 are often produced by nature, but this is not her only mode. Crosses 

 and hybrids are very often found growing wild where two some- 

 what similar species grow contiguous, and if the combination hap- 

 pens to be a useful one, as it often does, the new creation is 

 encouraged by nature ; then time and environment fix it, and man 

 comes on the scene, perhaps ages later, and discovers it, and, not 

 knowing all the facts, wonders where the connecting links have 

 gone. It is botanically classified as a new species, which it is most 

 certainly. 



" 'In cultivated plants the life struggle is removed, and here we 

 find variation almost the rule rather than the exception. 



" 'Varieties are the product of fixed laws, never of chance, and 

 with a knowledge of these laws we can improve the products of 

 nature, by employing nature's forces, in ameliorating old and produc- 

 ing new species and varieties better adapted to our necessities and 

 tastes. Better food, more sunshine, less arduous competition, will 

 of themselves induce variation in individual plants which will be 

 more or less transmitted to their seedlings, which, selected con- 

 secutively through a certain number of generations, will become 

 permanent. Environment here exerts an influence as in all chemical 

 cosmical, and celestial movements. These small increments from 



