The Story-Book of the Fields 



most of the trees grown from these seeds will 

 only produce poor or very bad pears. Only 

 a few will yield the parent pear. If we sow 

 again with the pips of the second generation 

 the pears will degenerate further. And if 

 we proceed with such sowing, always using 

 the seeds of the last generation, the fruit will 

 become smaller and smaller, bitter and hard, 

 till it has become once more the poor pear 

 of the hedges. One more example. What 

 flower can be compared to the rose, with its 

 fine growth, its sweet scent and bright colour ? 

 If we sow the seeds of this splendid plant its 

 offspring will be the poor bushes, the simple 

 wild roses of our hedges. There is nothing 

 surprising in this ; the noble flower started 

 as a wild rose, and in the seed it resumes 

 the features of its race. 



Among certain plants, however, the im- 

 provements resulting from cultivation are 

 more stable and persist despite the experience 

 of the seed, but only on the express condi- 

 tion that care shall never be lacking. All, 

 if left to themselves and propagated by 

 seed, will revert to their original condition 

 after a certain number of generations, during 

 which the characters impressed upon them 

 by the intercession of man are gradually lost, 



1 60 



