NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



second grist of correspondence will have to be 

 attended to, while every moment not given to 

 it must be devoted to the tests. It is not only 

 the tests that have been under way for years 

 that need attention in order to see that the 

 growing plants are cared for, but new tests are 

 constantly being started and the greatest care 

 must be exercised in the details of the work. 

 A single false poUenation, a single error in 

 transplanting, a single mistake in uprooting a 

 plant for a weed, may interrupt, even if it 

 does not wholly destroy, a test of vast impor- 

 tance. And one of the most wearing of all the 

 anxieties is found in this: That there is not 

 an experiment, however carefully it has been 

 planned and however closely the future results 

 of the test have been estimated, that may not, 

 through some untoward act of man, or insect, 

 or bird, or element, turn out badly in the end. 

 Then all must be done over again and again, 

 until the end sought for is reached. Nor is 

 there a test, so great the compensation, which 

 may not turn out, as many of them have, far 

 more important to the world than had been 

 anticipated. 



As soon as the afternoon correspondence is 



298 



