The Days of a Man ni907 



Henry P. Armsby of Pennsylvania State College, 

 and Gififord Pinchot, United States Forester. Our 

 duty was to devise a means to promote agriculture 

 in its economic and social phases. Our report, 

 published in November, 1908, was largely a plea for 

 scientific rather than spectacular results, and for free- 

 dom of study for competent investigators. "It is not 

 the business of the government to test the farmer's 

 seeds but to develop farmers who can test their own 

 seeds." 

 Li^e too About this period I began to give considerable 



short attention to certain important biological generaliza- 

 tions which, if life were longer, I should deal with in 

 detail. As a matter of fact, I did block out a book on 

 the law of geminate species among animals and 

 plants, but as the evidence could be given only in a 

 long series of expensive colored plates beyond the 

 reach of available publishers, I have not attempted 

 to go farther. 

 Oriko- Two generalizations in Ichthyology, both extremely 



obscure, have also intrigued me. These are "ortho- 

 genesis" on the one hand and, on the other, the rela- 

 tion of temperature to the number of vertebrae in 

 individuals or species. According to Eimer, the Ger- 

 man investigator who coined the word, orthogenesis 

 may be defined as determinate evolution along 

 definite lines as contrasted with the movement of 

 divergence. Among fishes I notice that in certain 

 groups some particular structure, having attained an 

 extreme degree of development and specialization 

 along a given line, next undergoes progressive de- 

 generation, to be finally altogether lost. 



Two groups of fishes possibly furnish examples in 

 point. In the series with bony stay across the 



C 248 3 



genesis 



