CHERRIES ARE RIPE. 123 



spring, is the ancestor of morellos, dukes, and the 

 Kentish kind ; the taller gean, found wild only in the 

 southern counties, is the strain from which we get our 

 bigaroons and other sweet table-fruit. Selection can do 

 wonderful things ; but it absolutely requires the positive 

 basis of natural variation to work upon. Though it 

 would be quite possible to make a serviceable fruit out 

 of a haw or a dog-rose, we may well doubt whether in 

 untold ages man could ever make a serviceable fruit out 

 of a heath or a thistle. So far as we can judge, the 

 natural variations which tend towards succulence and 

 pulpiness never seem to manifest themselves at all in the 

 group of plants to which the heaths and the thistles 

 belong. 



It is quite otherwise with the tribe of roses : including 

 not only the peach, the nectarine, the plum, and the 

 cherry ; but also the strawberry, the blackberry, the 

 raspberry, the cloudberry, the apple, the pear, and the 

 mountain-ash as well. Throughout all this family a 

 strong native tendency exists towards the spontaneous 

 production of juicy fruits. The roses, in fact, are the 

 great fruit-bearers of the world ; just as the grasses are 

 its grain-producers, and the catkin tribe its manufac- 

 turers of solid timber. It is interesting to decipher anew 

 the steps by which the chief groups of plants and 

 animals, afterwards turned to account by man for his 

 own purposes, were originally developed, quite apart 

 from his future needs, by the interaction of an environ- 

 ment in which as yet he bore no share. Just as at 

 the present day, when he settles in a new region teem- 

 ing with untried natural productions, he exploits them 

 all for his own service ; draining gutta-percha here, 



