NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
for the time considering has had a small, insig- 
nificant blossom all its life, all the life, anyway, 
that is recorded by man. Its life tendencies 
have centered and culminated, so to speak, in 
this pitifully inadequate bloom. The blossom 
is not only small and unattractive in form but 
weak in color, hard by the realm of the outcast 
weeds. But he has seen in it great possibil- 
ities; swiftly he sets about its improvement. 
Possibly he sees that by combining it with 
some near related flower friend he may make 
it lovelier, perhaps he decides that the only way 
to do is to pick out the very best of its kind 
from among a thousand or ten thousand 
plants and from this best one, poor though it 
may be, go on and on in a constant succession 
of upward selections from the plants that 
follow the seeding, until at last he brings 
forth the blossom he sought, beautiful, large, 
richer in color, fine and velvety in texture, a 
royal addition to the blossoms of the world. 
It takes long to do this,—perhaps twenty 
years. Twenty years to produce a new flower? 
Certainly, why not? Is it not worth it? Not 
that he may spend his whole time for that 
term on a single plant,—a whole series of them 
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