482 Appendix. 
Those persons who are always wondering how the varieties of 
fruits have come should consult the records. History is capa- 
ble of enlightening them. If the origins of varieties are traced 
it will be found that in the vast majority of cases the variety 
was simply discovered, and that some one began to propagate it 
because he thought it to be good. <A tree springs up along a 
roadside, in the fence-row, back of the barn, in a thicket, and bears 
acceptable fruit. It is the product of a chance seed dropped by a 
bird or thrown there by an urchin. A thousand, perhaps ten thon- - 
sand, seeds produce trees which bear poor or indifferent products 
where only one bears superior fruit. This one good tree is cherished, 
and all the others are forgotten, or perhaps are never secu; and 
then we wonder why so many more good varieties originate in the 
half-wild places than in the garden. It is only because more seeds 
have been sown there; aud as we do not covet the ground, the 
failures pass unnoticed. If we should secure the same results 
in the garden by the sowing of only half the number of secds, 
we should consider the experiment to be a costly one. It is 
probable that a seed will produce the same character of fruit, whether 
the tree springs up in a fence-row or in the garden; and the half- 
wild areas are, therefore, most useful aud prolific places in which 
to allow nature to carry out her various whims in plant-breeding. 
And if man has been willing to be relieved of all effort in the 
matter, it is fair to assume that he will long continue of fhe same 
mind, and that this exploration for new varieties will be a passion 
of the adventurer until every copse and tangle has been razed into 
cultivated fields. 
There has been, to be sure, an occasional direct attempt to pro- 
duce new varieties, but there has been very little definite plant- 
breeding of the type which sets an ideal before the mind and then 
tries to attain to it. It is not germane to the present book to dis- 
cuss the fundamental reasons why plants vary and new forms arise. 
, These reasons are obscure at best, but the greater part of them 
are probably not past finding out. It is enough for this occasion 
to say that nearly all the varieties of fruits were seedlings found 
in some waste place, or in a nursery row or a garden; and they 
were propagated. 
