XI 



Improving on Nature 



WHAT we call improving upon 

 various forms of animal and 

 vegetable life is of course no improve- 

 ment at all, so far as the basic ma- 

 terials are concerned. The stringless 

 bean suits our Mary much better than 

 the old type, but the pod has been 

 deprived of its native strength and 

 resisting power. The spineless cactus 

 brings the desert plant within the 

 realms of cattle forage, but it has been 

 shorn of a characteristic that nature 

 had found desirable from the cactus — 

 not the human — standpoint. Freed 

 from artificial manipulation, these 

 changes of form are of course soon lost. 

 Rose-growers have produced the 



[143] 



