PRODUCTION OF NEW VARIETIES. 55 



now stands, it is possible to make very near approximations to 

 the attainment of the desired result, and the labors of the pains- 

 taking operator are always crowned with gratifying results, often 

 even richer and better than his most sanguine expectations. 

 Sometimes the results of his labors are very different from his 

 intentions, as though nature would say to him, you have not yet 

 fathomed the depths of my secret places ; study me more care- 

 fully, consider more fully all the conditions which influence 

 results, and conduct your operations with greater nicety, then 

 will you find me a willing servant to do your bidding. 



'New varieties are, as a rule, produced from seed ; and so far 

 as the hand of man can control results, in the present state of 

 our knowledge, they are always produced from seed. Sometimes 

 trees and plants produce what are termed sports. A branch of a 

 Spitzenburgh apple tree, operated upon by forces whose modes of 

 action are as yet to us unknown, will produce russet apples, 

 whose appearance, texture and flavor even, differ more or less 

 widely from aU the other apples on the tree. A branch of a tree 

 wiU assume a drooping habit, or put forth variegated foliage, or 

 leaves curiously cut or curled in a ringlet. These unusual de- 

 velopments man is able to perpetuate by grafting, and so to 

 increase their number that every man can ornament his lawn 

 with the ring-leaved willow, or the variegated-leaved ash, or the 

 cut-leaved birch. But no one has yet penetrated so far into the 

 hidden things of nature as to be able to unfold to us the laws 

 which govern their production, or teach us how we may at will 

 produce Kke variations. Some physiologists, with wise looks 

 and high-sounding phrases, wOl tell us that somewhere, away 

 back in the ages of long ago, an atom became impressed with 

 the tendency to assume such an abnormal form, and by slow 

 degrees has communicated this tendency to its fellow atoms, 

 until favorable conditions having arisen, this tendency has been 

 able to give expression to itself in the form in which we see it 

 developed. But what is an atom ? What is such a tendency, 

 and by whom impressed ? Can atoms arrange themselves as they 



