DEVELOPING CHARACTERS 191 



plants — each similar to the original plant, be- 

 cause each, in fact, is a part of the original 

 plant. 



But by keeping our new pink daisies together 

 year after year, in perhaps six years or ten or 

 fourteen, pink being crossed with pink, and the 

 equilibrium restored, we should find that we were 

 getting seeds which would come true, or nearly 

 true to type. 



We greatly disturb heredity to produce varia- 

 tions; then we select the variation which pleases 

 us and fix it by further selection and repetition. 



The architect can always build a second struc- 

 ture better than the first, and the plant improver 

 likewise finds in each experiment a multitude of 

 new suggestions for the production of still other 

 changes and improvements. 



In even the handful of daisy variations which 

 can be reproduced here there are to be seen 

 countless new tendencies, any one of which might 

 lead to the perfection of a wholly different, if not 

 a better flower. 



There are, of course, the variations in size — 

 and those with the long petals show that with 

 encouragement the flower, simply by quantity 

 production and continued selection, might pro- 

 duce an offspring with blossoms much larger 

 than those of either parent. 



