SELECTIVE EVOLUTION 213 



about crosses, or hybrids, which the bees or the 

 birds would never make. 



The greatest service which we render toward 

 the advancement of plant life is that of selection, 

 endless, skillful selection. 



The daisies were really, after all, the result, 

 principally, of selection. The important thing 

 was not to bring a mass of daisies together for the 

 bees to work on; the important thing was to se- 

 lect orange daisies, and white daisies, with the 

 purpose of producing other colors. Then, with 

 thousands of variations, we selected again — this 

 time for the colors we desired, and destroyed the 

 rest. 



Afterward, with these new colors, we began a 

 still further course of selection, selecting the 

 largest, the hardiest, the tallest; and no matter 

 how long we might continue to grow these 

 daisies, we should keep on selecting, selecting, se- 

 lecting — each step in our selection, because it has 

 the human mind behind it — because it is actuated 

 by purpose and desire — each step in this selec- 

 tion representing an advance, which, without 

 our help, might take a hundred or a thousand 

 years to bring about. 



So, in working out any ideal in plant improve- 

 ment, the first factor and the last one is selection. 

 Selection enters into the ideal itself, it enters 



