ON THE PRUNE 



be subordinated when the plant migrated to 

 regions away from the salt water and hybridized 

 with other races. But here as before the latent 

 trait would be preserved as a submersed factor in 

 the germ plasm, ready when the occasion arose to 

 make itself again manifest. 



But how, it may not unnaturally be inquired, 

 would man himself discover the value of the alkali 

 bath in preserving the prune? 



Granted that a prune had been evolved through 

 artificial selection that had a sufficiently high sugar 

 content to make it a drying prune, how chanced 

 anyone to hit upon the particular method of dry- 

 ing that is now employed, an essential preliminary 

 of which is the submersion of the fruit in the 

 alkali bath? 



The question is doubly pertinent because even 

 to this day in France the use of this method is by 

 no means universal. In many cases the prune is 

 still dried with the aid of artificial heat, the fumes 

 and smoke of wood or charcoal taking the place 

 of the alkali bath in giving the right quality to the 

 skin and aiding in preservation. So we may 

 assume that the simpler method of using an alkali 

 bath is of very recent origin. 



Not unlikely the discovery was made altogether 

 by accident. 



Many of us can recall that in our boyhood days 



[91] 



