IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 



vines, and searching attentively among them for 

 the individual vine that bore a crop coming nearest 

 to the specifications. All the other vines were de- 

 stroyed, and the new races of peas finally devel- 

 oped were descendants of the one best vine. In 

 each succeeding generation the inferior vines were 

 similarly destroyed, and the best individual speci- 

 mens preserved. 



The vines of the sixth generation were prac- 

 tically uniform and met the specifications as to 

 abundant crop of peas of designated size and 

 quality, maturing at the same time. 



But while Mr. Burbank was developing this new 

 race of peas, he developed also from the same 

 set of vines four other races, some of them bear- 

 ing large peas, others lentil-shaped ones, merely 

 by selecting generation after generation with 

 these qualities in mind. 



The point is simply that in any row of peas in 

 your garden, grown from the same lot of seed, 

 there is a wide range of variation, which the aver- 

 age gardener quite ignores. 



But the attentive eye notes that some vines grow 

 abundant crops and others scanty crops; that 

 some of the pods are large and some small; and 

 that as regards almost any given quality of the 

 pea there is diversity, even though the peas are 

 all classified as belonging to the same variety. 



If you will select and save separately the peas 

 from half a dozen different vines, you may de- 

 velop as many different races of peas in the course 

 of a few generations. You may produce a variety 



[111] 



