Means of Propagation 



and we should always be seeking for improve- 

 ments, which would be lost almost as soon 

 as they were found, because of the lack of 

 means for fixing them and making them 

 permanent. 



If history had preserved the record, what 

 long and difficult trials must have been 

 carried out, in order to derive our cultivated 

 plants from a few useless wildlings ! Think 

 of all the happy inspirations that have been 

 needed in order to select from the vegetable 

 world the species capable of being modified 

 for good ; of the patient attempts to subject 

 them to our cultivation ; of the labour in 

 improving them from year to year, and of 

 the trouble in preventing them from de- 

 generating and in handing them on to us in 

 their perfect condition — think of all this 

 and you will recognise that the smallest fruit 

 or vegetable represents more than the work 

 of the man who raised it in his garden. It 

 may represent the accumulated labour of a 

 hundred generations which were needed to 

 create the table vegetable from the poor 

 wild plant. We are living on the fruit and 

 vegetables created by our ancestors ; on the 

 labour, the strength and the thought of 

 the past. If the strength of our arms and 



163 



