PLANT AFFINITIES 



CHOOSING THE LINES OF 

 LEAST RESISTANCE 



WHY do not plants hybridize in a state 

 of nature?" a visitor asked me. "You 

 seem to get most of your new varieties 

 by hybridizing old ones. Why does not Nature 

 take a leaf from your note-book and produce new 

 species in the same way?" 



And I was able to inform my facetious ques- 

 tioner, much to his surprise, that the method he 

 suggested was one that Nature had practiced from 

 the beginning, and is constantly practicing all 

 about us. 



We were standing near the gateway of my 

 Sebastopol place. I pointed out across the road. 



"Why, just over by the roadside," I said, "you 

 may see for yourself precisely such an experiment 

 in hybridizing as I have made in the case of 

 thousands of plants. Do you see those tarweeds 

 there? Doubtless you are familiar with them. 



[VOLUME III CHAPTER II] 



