NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
second grist of correspondence will have to be 
attended to, while every moment not given to 
it must be devoted to the tests. It is not only 
the tests that have been under way for years 
that need attention in order to see that the 
growing plants are cared for, but new tests are 
constantly being started and the greatest care 
must be exercised in the details of the work. 
A single false pollenation, a single error in 
transplanting, a single mistake in uprooting a 
plant for a weed, may interrupt, even if it 
does not wholly destroy, a test of vast impor- 
tance. And one of the most wearing of all the 
anxieties is found in this: That there is not 
an experiment, however carefully it has been 
planned and however closely the future results 
of the test have been estimated, that may not, 
through some untoward act of man, or insect, 
or bird, or element, turn out badly in the end. 
Then all must be done over again and again, 
until the end sought for is reached. Nor is 
there a test, so great the compensation, which 
may not turn out, as many of them have, far 
more important to the world than had been 
anticipated. 
As soon as the afternoon correspondence is 
298 
