ON NEW PLUMS AND PRUNES 



But even allowing a thousand atoms to each 

 molecule, we have ample material for the con- 

 struction of something like eight million billion 

 molecules for each one of our 8,000 groups of 

 potential plum trees. 



Obviously there is abundant opportunity for 

 the combination of such material into complex 

 groups, quite adequate to account for the different 

 qualities of our various plums be they never so 

 divergent as to form or size or color or flavor. 

 THE BUD AS A WALLED CITY 



In this expanded view, then, it is no more 

 wonderful that a pea-sized plum-bud can contain 

 within its germ plasm the potentialities of hun- 

 dreds of varieties of future plums than that a city 

 can comprise hundreds of houses, no two just 

 alike, all built of wood, brick, stone, and metal in 

 different proportions and combinations; just as 

 the germ cells are all built of the atoms of carbon, 

 hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in different com- 

 binations. 



There are far more bricks (atoms) available to 

 build each different type of germ plasm in our 

 plum-bud colony than are required to build the 

 largest structure in the man-made city. 



The real wonder, as I said before, lies in the 

 fact that each infinitesimal aggregation of mole- 

 cules of protoplasm has the capacity to take to 



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