ON HURRYING EVOLUTION 



or appearance, or some probable quality which 

 it contains within. In this simple selection of 

 individuals we may have saved other thousands 

 of years. 



With unerring accuracy we have seen that the 

 pollen of the two kinds has been interchanged, so 

 that the five hundred or so resulting seeds will 

 represent the two heredities we wish to mix — and 

 only these. 



Who can estimate how long it might have 

 taken the bees and the winds, working even in 

 neighboring trees, to effect specific crosses with 

 the certainty which we have assured? 



Now, with new heredities bundled up in our 

 five hundred cherry stones, we plant them under 

 every favoring condition in our shallow box, and 

 unless mishap or accident intervenes, we get new 

 cherry trees from all, or, at worst, lose but a few. 



From five hundred other cherries on a tree, 

 leaving the birds to distribute the seed, how many 

 seedlings will there sprout? 



***** 



And now, with our sprouted cherry seedlings 

 six inches or eight in height, with no man knows 

 how many thousand years of nature's processes 

 cut out, we come to the most important short-cut 

 of all — quick fruiting, so that there may be quick 

 selection. 



[197] 



