v AIMS OF EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION 251 



And now, what are the aims of experimental 

 transformism ? 



As stated, from the beginning, we wish to test the 

 theory of evolution, as applied to living beings. This 

 is the main object : but I wish to call your attention 

 also to the practical and utilitarian results which may 

 be expected and attained. As you all know, most, if 

 not all, of our garden vegetables and plants are the 

 result of man's industry, and in the cases where the 

 original wild form still exists, we can well measure the 

 distance between Nature's product and the perfected 

 form shaped by man, and best adapted to his needs. 

 And if man had not undertaken the task of bettering 

 bettering meaning here simply adapting more ade- 

 quately to his needs Nature's work, many of our im- 

 portant foods would not have existed. 1 The same is 

 true of animals. Compared with our domestic animals 

 the wild forms sink in insignificancy as concerns useful- 

 ness, and here again man has been a most potent 

 factor in creating out of the raw material those useful 



1 Cf. Asa Gray : Were the Fruits made for Man or did Man make the 

 Fniits? (American Natural, vol. viii., p. 116.) The veteran botanist 

 here showed that while some fruits and vegetables have hardly departed 

 from their original wild type (huckleberries, cranberries, persimmons, 

 etc. ), others have been bettered and rendered more useful by cultivation 

 (currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blackberries, chestnuts, straw- 

 berries), while others have been so much perfected as to represent new 

 fruits (apple, pear, peach, etc.). He adds a list of fruits which man 

 should endeavour to render more perfect for his own needs. 



