54« THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



This retarded development has no doubt been largely due to the 

 fact that biology requires all the other sciences as its servants, and it is 

 only as chemistry and botany and physics and geology have progressed 

 that the biologist has been able to find satisfactory data and material 

 for his attempts to reveal the nature and origin of the various forms 

 of life. 



It is true that Darwin studied very closely the work of British stock 

 breeders and referred largely to their work in his subsequent writings 

 to explain and illustrate his theory of the origin of species through nat- 

 ural selection. The principal part of the constructive work of British 

 stock breeders, however, had been done in the first half of last century, 

 and the indebtedness of stock breeding to Darwin was by no means so 

 considerable as the service that industry afforded to the naturalists of 

 the time and to Darwin in particular. 



It was not until 1859 that the " Origin of Species " was printed. 

 Eemembering, then, the revolutionizing aspect of the first reasonable 

 explanations of the development of the forms of life, and the diflBculties 

 opposed to the general acceptance of natural selection as the main 

 evolutionary factor, it is not very surprising that the economic value 

 of such truth has received scant attention. 



To interpret a science to an industry requires some individuals 

 interested and qualified in both fields. If botany and zoology, in 

 former years, attracted any men really conversant with agriculture, 

 their full endowments have been devoted to some of the numerous en- 

 grossing and fascinating questions of pure science. So we find that 

 until ten years ago it could scarcely be said that any scientific students 

 of heredity were seriously attempting to serve agriculture. 



The men who had done so much in the molding of animal form 

 could not be called scientific; complete strangers to any conception of 

 the physical basis of heredity they worked solely as directed by their 

 own experience and such meager teachings as were obtainable from 

 their predecessors. What little constructive work had been acconi- 

 plished in the plant kingdom was eflEected by self-taught men of unusual 

 natural endowments for the work. 



It would be a serious mistake to lose sight of the fact that wonder- 

 ful improvements had been effected by development and improvement 

 of numerous varieties of both plants and animals long before any 

 physiological explanation of heredity was attempted. It is quite clear, 

 however, that the principles underlying the achievements of those 

 earlier self-taught master breeders were very imperfectly understood 

 as principles; indeed, it did not seem to them that a satisfactory ex- 

 planation of their experiences could ever be forthcoming. Breeding 

 was not an art based upon science, but was purely an artistic calling. 

 This being true, it has been impossible to prepare younger men to 



