150 Sioux Citij Academy of Science and Letters. 



with generally little thought about the matter, that the 

 products of each section of the country are adapted to 

 the soil and climate of the region where we find them. 

 This would seem to establish, as a fact, that no organism 

 can exist except it be in harmony with its environment. 

 Now the organism must change as its environment 

 changes or it will cease to exist. If then physical change 

 takes place in the conditions surrounding a species, then 

 those individuals which may have varied so as to be a 

 little better suited to the new conditions will be more 

 likely to live and transmit such variations to their de- 

 scendents. Such variations are transmitted and, there- 

 fore, tend to become permanent. Every farmer is aware 

 of this fact, and takes advantage of it in the improve- 

 ment of his stock, whether plant or animal. There fre- 

 quently appears in the fields of the farmer, in his flocks 

 and herds, or in his garden, some animal or plant dif- 

 ferent from the others of the same species, and better in 

 some way. These variations, commonly called sports, 

 are frequently used for the propagation of a new variety. 

 Care in cultivation and selection from best fruits has 

 given us all our many varieties of apples from the small 

 sour crab that grows wild. So have all our grains come 

 from w|ld grasses. All the many varieties of dogs, from 

 the largest to the smallest, have been produced by the 

 careful selection of the best animals for breeding. When 

 we look about and see what wonders man has accom- 

 plished by care and selection in the short time since he 

 has had domestic animals, or has cultivated plants, we 

 can begin to understand what nature, with her unlimited 

 time, can do and has done. While man has only worked 

 and selected from external and visible characters, nature 

 has acted on every internal organ, and while man has 

 changed and modified the beings of the organic world 

 for his own pleasure and benefit, nature has worked a 

 far greater change, entirely for the good of the organism. 

 Therefore, nature's changes are far more enduring and 

 true than any that man, in his comparatively short time, 

 has been able to produce. 



At our meeting, two weeks ago, we were told of a 

 case of plant reversion, and the case was used as a tes- 

 timon}^ or argument against the forming of new species 



