124 COLIN CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



extracting dye-stuffs there, and discovering new starches 

 in yam or sago-palm, potato or cassava yonder so at his 

 first appearance upon earth he took in hand the various 

 things already evolved in it by pre-existing agencies, 

 and moulded their properties as best he might to his 

 personal uses. Each of them had a function of its own 

 in reference to the needs of the organism to which it 

 belonged : man adapted them to his special human 

 wants. 



But the ultimate origin of the pulpiness in plums and 

 cherries was quite antecedent to any particular adoption 

 of their stocks in the primitive orchards of early man. 

 So far as we can now tell, the roses do not date back in 

 time beyond the tertiary period of geology. The very 

 earliest members of the family still extant are little 

 creeping herbs, like cinquefoil and silver-weed, with 

 yellow blossoms (all primitive blossoms, indeed, are 

 yellow) and small, dry, inedible seeds. The strawberry 

 is the lowest type of rose above these very simple forms. 

 It is still a creeping herb, and its seeds are still small, 

 dry, and inedible ; but they are embedded in a juicy 

 pulp which entices birds to swallow them, and so aid in 

 dispersing them under circumstances peculiarly favour- 

 able to their due germination and growth. Next in 

 order after this earliest rude succulent type (nature's 

 first rough sketch of a fruit, so to speak ; and a very 

 successful one too, from the human point of view at 

 least) come the blackberry and raspberry ; where the 

 individual fruitlets grow soft, sweet, and pulpy, instead 

 of remaining dry as in the strawberry. And this change 

 clearly marks a step in advance ; so that blackberries 

 and raspberries are enabled to get along with fewer 



