200 



SELECTION. 



Chap. XX. 



young, to the detection of differences in peas intended for seed. 



emarks that the old scarlet American strawberry 



Mr. Barnet 



■8 



cultivated for more than a century without produci 

 le variety ; and another writer observes how singular 



■e 



that when 



vary 



the truth 



deners first began to attend to this fruit it begar 



doubt being that it had always varied 



but that, until slight varieties were selected and propagated by 



seed, no conspicuous 



obtained. The finest shades of 



heat have been discriminated and selected with 



difference in \ 



almost as much care, as we see in Colonel Le Couteur's works 

 as in the case of the higher animals ; but with our cereals the 

 process of selection has seldom or never been long continued. 



It may be worth while to give a few examples of methodical 

 selection with plants ; but in fact the great improvement of all 

 our anciently cultivated plants may be attributed to selection 

 long carried on, in part methodically, and in part unconsciously. 

 I have shown in a former chapter how the weight of the goose- 

 berry has been increased by systematic selection and culture. 

 The flowers of the Heartsease have been similarly increased in 



and regularity of outline. With the Cineraria, Mr. G-lenny 



enough, when the flowers were ragged and starry 



and ill defined in colour, to fix a standard which was then 



considered outrageously high and impossible, and which 



24 



it 



bold 



if reached, it was said, we should be no gainers by, as it w 

 spoil the beauty of the flowers. He maintained that he 



ght; and 



proved it to be so." The doubling 



of flowers has several times been effected by careful selection : 

 the Eev. W. Williamson, 25 after sowing during several years 



seed of Anemone 



found 



a plant with one additi 



petal : he sowed the seed of this, and by perseverance in the 

 same course obtained several varieties with six or seven rows of 



gle Scotch rose was doubled, and yielded eight 



The Canterbury bell 



The 



in nine or ten 



years 



petals. 



good va 



{Campanula medium) was doubled by careful selection in four 



generations. 27 In four years Mr. Buckman, 28 by culture and 



23 • Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. vi. p. 

 152. 



24 < Journal of Horticulture,' 1 862, p. 



26 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. iv. p. 



285. 



W. Bromehead, in 'Gard. 



369. 



. 



Chronicle,' 1857, p. 550. 



25 < Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. iv. p. 381. ss < Q ardi chronicle,' 1862, p. 721. 







