President's Address 



THE EVOLUTIONARY CONTROL OF ORGANISMS 

 AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE. 



L. B. Walton 



A comparatively brief period has passed since the evi- 

 dence brought together by Darwin in connection with the 

 results slowly accumulated from other sources has clearly 

 demonstrated that the diversity of organic life in the world 

 occurs through evolution. It is one thing, however, to 

 clearly diagnose a condition and quite another to under- 

 stand the causes which have brought about the phenomenon 

 so that similar results may be produced advantageously. 

 With the assumption that evolution was merely the survival 

 of those forms best adapted to the environment gen- 

 eration after generation, the explanation of the method 

 as well as its practical application, namely the improvement 

 of organisms in any given direction, was apparently a 

 simple . matter. It seemed evident that man had modified 

 and adapted to his welfare various plants and animals by 

 a more or less unconscious and haphazard selection long 

 before history records civilization. One need not be a pes- 

 simist to assert the actual evidence thus far obtained indi- 

 cates that the supposed progress made in the improvement 

 of domesticated animals and plants is nothing more than 

 the sorting out of pure lines and thus represents no ad- 

 vancement. The studies by Lloyd on races of rats in India 

 are extremely suggestive in this connection. Why then could 

 not civilized man carry forward the work and with the 

 knowledge gained since the principles of evolution were rec- 

 ognized, obtain far reaching results within a brief period of 

 time? All that seemed necessary was to have individuals 



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