Origin of Varieties 163 



nation of varieties; and so long as the mind makes a mys- 

 tery of a subject it is impossible to elucidate the subject. 

 We have also been taught that like produces like, and 

 therefore that any unlikeness between two plants as 

 between the parent and its offspring calls for instant 

 explanation. The fact is, that it is not in the nature of 

 domestic productions for like to produce like, but rather 

 for similar to produce similar. That is, there are certain 

 type or family characteristics that pass over to the off- 

 spring, but there are normally very many unlikenesses 

 in the details. Apples give rise to apples, and sometimes 

 there is a closer reproduction of the parent in tribes like 

 the Fameuse apples and the Crawford peaches; but there 

 is seldom or never an exact duplication of parental fea- 

 tures. Considering that this is the rule in nature, the 

 wonder is that plants should ever reproduce the variety 

 with approximate exactness. In other words, rigidity of 

 generation may be the thing to be explained rather than 

 the elasticity of it. In kitchen-garden vegetables this 

 rigidity has come about, but it is the direct result of a long 

 effort at selection and breeding until the elasticity of the 

 type has been largely bred out. In the vegetables, invari- 

 ableness has been bred. 



Those persons who are always wondering how the 

 varieties of fruits have come should consult the records. 

 History is capable of enlightening them. If the origins are 

 traced, it will be found that in the greatest number of cases 

 the variety was simply discovered, and that some one 

 began to propagate it because he thought it to be good. A 

 tree springs up along a roadside, in the fence-row, back of 

 the barn, in a thicket, and bears acceptable fruit. It is the 

 product of a chance seed dropped by a bird or thrown there 

 by an urchin. A thousand, perhaps ten thousand, seeds 



