ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE 



There follows a concluding section under the 

 heading "Facts and Possibilities" that summarizes 

 the work and that may be worth quoting here for 

 its historical interest. The wider bearings of the 

 problems touched on will be more comprehen- 

 sively discussed in a later chapter. But the general 

 attitude of the experimenter toward his work in 

 both its theoretical and its practical bearings is 

 rather clearly outlined in the summary concluding 

 a catalog which so high an authority as Professor 

 Hugo de Vries has seen fit to describe as of epoch- 

 making character: 



"There is no possible room for doubt that every 

 form of plant life existing on the earth is now 

 being and has always been modified, more or less, 

 by its surroundings, and often rapidly and per- 

 manently changed, never to return to the same 

 form. 



"When man takes advantage of these facts, and 

 changes all the conditions, giving abundance of 

 room for expansion and growth, extra cultivation 

 and a superabundance of the various chemical 

 elements in the most assimilable form, with abun- 

 dance of light and heat, great changes sooner or 

 later occur according to the susceptibility of the 

 subject; and when, added to all these combined 

 governing forces, we employ the other potent 

 forces of combination and selection of the best 



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