ON THE STONELESS PLUMS AND PRUNES 



that to plum seeds in general is as a veritable 

 armor plate. 



The plant that suffered this strange mishap 

 was, as the reader already knows, a little French 

 bullace of small significance, known as the sans 

 noyau. Of course we must not be supposed to im- 

 ply that the relative importance of this particular 

 member of the plum tribe had anything to do 

 with its mishap. The laws of heredity apply quite 

 as rigidly to the most insignificant as to the most 

 important of plants. Indeed, it is scarcely within 

 man's province to decide as to which plants are 

 really insignificant and which important in the 

 scheme of things. 



But at least it may be affirmed that, according 

 to ordinary human standards, the little bullace 

 was of most inferior type. Yet, paradoxically 

 enough, it became, in virtue of its misfortune, the 

 most important race of plums in the world. 



For without the aid of this seemingly mal- 

 formed race, the plant developer would have had 

 no leverage with which to attack the problem of 

 relieving the great family of stone fruits of their 

 now useless and even obnoxious seed-covering. 



The malformation of the little bullace, through 

 which it lost its seed protector, would doubtless 

 have resulted under conditions of natural selec- 

 tion in exterminating the species. 



[149] 



