ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE 



prised thousands of acres, and the employment of 

 an army of helpers. 



If this is true of the plants of a single series 

 of experiments, what shall we say of the aggregate 

 companies making up the ranks of plants involved 

 in two or three thousand experiments. So soon as 

 our work was well under way, and throughout all 

 the succeeding years, at least three thousand dif- 

 ferent series of experiments have been carried for- 

 ward simultaneously. 



Very commonly a million seedlings are in- 

 volved in a single fraternity. 



Under these conditions, it will be obvious that 

 there was no choice but to select the few individ- 

 uals that came nearest to the ideals of a mental 

 forecast, ruthlessly destroying the rest to make 

 room for the favored ones. 



And in so doing we were of course duplicating 

 the method of Nature herself, although the quali- 

 ties that determined our choice in any given case 

 were not usually those that would have fitted the 

 chosen individuals for preservation in a natural 

 environment. Our selections were made, of course, 

 with an eye to fitting the plant to meet human 

 needs and tastes. The selections of Nature are 

 made with reference to the needs of the plant 

 itself. 



But if we make allowance for this difference in 



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