40 Plant-Breeding 



the fields and gardens. His skill and science are exercised 

 in the selection and so-called breeding of the offspring, 

 more than in the original genesis of the new form. It is 

 usually only in those plants which he multiplies by simple 

 division that he gains much immediate profit by crossing 

 or hybridizing. It is the slow and patient care and selec- 

 tion, day by day, which permanently ameliorates and 

 improves the vegetable world. Nature starts the work; 

 man may complete it. 



It is now generally held that species in nature some- 

 times originate suddenly, by means of " leaps." In fact, 

 the de Vriesian view is that real species so originate, 

 and the steps whereby a few species come into existence 

 are called mutations. (See Chapter V.) However this 

 may be, it is nevertheless true that these mutations are 

 yet beyond the power of man directly to produce. Selec- 

 tion is t still a powerful agent with which to ameliorate 

 domestic plants. 



