Twenty-Three Potato Seeds 



AND 



What They Taught 



A Glimpse at 

 THE Influence of Heredity 



THE springtime buds unfold into leaves 

 before our eyes — without our seeing them 

 unfold. We have grown accustomed to 

 look for bare limbs in March; to find them hidden 

 by heavy foliage in May; and because the process 

 is slow and tedious, and because it goes on always, 

 everywhere about us, we are apt to count it 

 commonplace. 



Just as we can understand that the tree in our 

 yard, responding to its environment — to the April 

 showers, to the warm noons of May, to the heat 

 of summer and to the final chill of fall — has 

 completed a transformation in a year, so, too, 

 can we more easily understand the gradual trans- 

 formation of the cactus in an age. So, too, can 

 we realize that the individual steps between the 

 first ineffectual hairy protuberance, and the final 



[Volume I — Chapter II] 



