RIVALRY OF PLANTS 167 



charmingly delicate — unobtrusively artistic — ^not 

 loud in color, but gently alluring. 



It costs money to ship oranges, so the more 

 the meat and the less the rind, the less we waste 

 in transportation charges. 



A comparison of the wild orange with the 

 cultivated fruit of our orange groves shows how 

 this fruit has adapted itself to our ideas of 

 economy. 



Lettuce in the head makes a more appetizing 

 salad than lettuce in large, sprawling leaves. 



A comparison between wild lettuce and the 

 head lettuce on our green grocer's stand shows 

 plant adaptation in a most wonderful way to our 

 tastes. 



And so with celery, and artichokes — and every 

 plant that is grown for the market — wild, its 

 adaptations are toward meeting wild environ- 

 ments; cultivated, its adaptations are selected 

 toward fitting itself into our routine of life. 



We have seen the price which variation costs; 

 now we begin to see the value of it. Among 

 those violets, environment — the environment of 

 the present combining with heredity which is the 

 recorded environment of all the past — contrived 

 to see that there were no duplicates; that each 

 violet, a little different from its mate, might, 

 through its difference, be suited to a separate 



