1 68 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEVf/. 



was a single kind of endive, and two of lettuce — both 

 bad — while we can now reckon more than fifty lettuces 

 and endives, all excellent. We can even name the 

 very recent dates of our best pippins and kernel fruits — 

 all of them differing from those of our forefathers, which 

 they resemble in name only. In most cases things 

 remain while names change ; here, on the contrary, it 

 is the names that have been constant while the things 

 have varied.* 



"It is not that every one of these good varieties 

 did not arise from the same wild stock; but how 

 many attempts has not man made on Nature before 

 he succeeded in getting them. How many millions of 

 germs has he not committed to the earth, before she 

 has rewarded him by producing them ? It was only by 

 sowing, tending, and bringing to maturity an almost 

 infinite number of plants of the same kind that he was 

 able to recognize some individuals with fruits sweeter 

 and better than others ; and this first discovery, which 

 itself involves so much care, would have remained for 

 ever fruitless if he had not made a second, which 

 required as much genius as the first required patience 

 — I mean the art of grafting those precious individuals, 

 which, unfortunately, cannot continue a line as noble 

 as their own, nor themselves propagate their rare and 

 admirable qualities ? And this alone proves that these 

 qualities are purely individual, and not specific, for the 

 pips or stones of these excellent fruits bring forth the 

 original wild stock, so that they do not form species 

 * Sup. torn. V. p. 250, 1778, 



