ON HEREDITY 



crowded for room. Plants which grow high do so 

 usually because, at some stage in their existence, 

 they have had to grow high to get the sun and the 

 air which they need. Low-lying plants, like the 

 pumpkin for example, give evidence that they have 

 always enjoyed plenty of space in which to spread 

 out. 



"The bear of your story may have slipped 

 away, unknown to its keepers, and seen another 

 bear fish for salmon; but if these tendencies and 

 traits, and if the ability to perform the feats 

 necessary' for existence are not passed down from 

 mother to son — if they do not come down through 

 the line of ancestry, if all of the old environments 

 of the past have not accumulated into trans- 

 missible heredity, what enables that sweet pea to 

 twine around the stake?" 



***** 



"A closer observation of the sweet pea will 

 show us that its tendrils are really modified leaves, 

 produced, like the spines of the cactus, by ages of 

 environment which, added up, combine to make 

 heredity; and that their actual sensitiveness to 

 touch is so highly developed that they almost 

 instantly encircle and hold fast to any suitable 

 support within their reach. 



"It would be interesting to take a motion 

 picture of a sweet pea as it grows, as similar 



[41] 



