OBTAINING VARIATIONS 105 



if we were to say that there were not eighteen 

 different varieties merely, but as many varieties 

 as there were individual plants. 



But while such an experience as this is utterly 

 disconcerting to any amateur whose only thought 

 is to produce a bed of flowers of uniform color 

 or character, the same experience would offer 

 precisely the opportunity that the developer of 

 new varieties is seeking. Now, it is not a case of 

 hunting here and there throughout a company 

 of seedlings for one that differs by a shade from 

 the others. It is a case of selecting two or three 

 or a dozen individual plants that present fea- 

 tures that attract the experimenter; and selecting 

 their seed to be planted the following year in 

 individual plots, that the experiment may be 

 carried forward, generation after generation, 

 just as before so far as principles are concerned 

 — but very differently as regards results, inas- 

 much as now there is the most striking departure 

 in each successive generation from the character- 

 istics of the parent form. 



How wide the departure may be within a few 

 generations is well manifested by the dahlias, 

 since these plants, as we have already learned, 

 have all been developed in the space of about a 

 century from wild originals. Moreover, by no 

 means are many generations represented as 



