THE MAN AND HIS WORK 



of stem and bud and leaf as to forecast the type 

 of fruit sought to be developed in this particular 

 experiment. 



The entire rows of seedlings are the product 

 of hybridizing experiments and antecedent selec- 

 tion extending perhaps through many generations. 

 The seed from which they were grown has been 

 carefully gathered and treasured, and infinite 

 pains have been taken to bring the seedlings, 

 through transplantation and cultivation, to their 

 present stage of development. 



Yet now, in a single half -hour, they have been 

 made to run the gauntlet of a vision that seems 

 to penetrate to the very heart of their germ-plasm, 

 like an X-ray, and all but a bare half-dozen or 

 so in each thousand have been found wanting. 

 Another hour, and the ten thousand failures less 

 the half-hundred will have been uprooted and 

 piled in a heap to be burned like any other mass 

 of rubbish. They had done their best, but their 

 best was not good enough; and the soil that they 

 occupied must be given over to some other line 

 of experiments; for every acre of these gardens 

 must be made to do the work of a score of acres. 



Meantime the dozen or score of selected seed- 

 lings that remain as the lone survivors here and 

 there in the devastated ranks will be treasured 

 and be given every horticultural attention. At 

 the proper season they will come under the knife 

 of the grafter, who will cut each stem into appro- 

 priate sections and graft pieces on the limbs of 

 some sturdy tree of the same species. This is 



[11] 



