314 THE AMEBIC AX NATURALIST [Vol. XLVI 



smaller fires. If after cultures of a few generations he 

 finds that the offspring of starved parents do not differ 

 from those which have been well fed, he will be railed at 

 for having wasted his time in demonstrating what was 

 obvious in advance. At the same time he will be criti- 

 cized by others for not having carried out his experiments 

 "for a sufficient number of generations to allow the accu- 

 mulation of small effects of the environment" on the 

 ascendants before deciding against the possibility of some 

 influence upon the descendants of ancestral environ- 

 mental conditions. If he finds that there are measurable 

 differences between series of individuals whose ancestry 

 has been subjected to opposed conditions, the results are 

 sure to be dismissed in many quarters as of little impor- 

 tance because of purely physiological and not hereditary 

 significance. 



The very fact of the inevitability of criticism — what- 

 ever the results obtained — seems to render it even more 

 highly desirable to appeal to the facts afforded by a large 

 and detailed experimental investigation. Naturally such 

 an experiment can never be so large and so refined as to 

 be beyond all criticism. 



The problem is not merely of wide interest from the 

 purely biological viewpoint, but it is of first rate impor- 

 tance from the practical side as well. The biggest pump- 

 kin, the heaviest bull, and the finest ear of corn are the 

 resultant of germ plasm and environment — of nature and 

 nurture, to use Galton's apt words. But in paying fabu- 

 lous prices for the seed of prize winners little thought is 

 given to the question of the proportionate importance of 

 breeding and feeding in producing this excellence. From 

 the practical standpoint it seems desirable to know 

 whether parents — animals or plants — of as nearly as 

 possible the same hereditary endowment differ at all in 

 their capacity for producing high-grade offspring because 

 of the superior care and feeding which admits them to 

 the show bench. If it be found that the well-fed mother 

 produces finer, or poorer, offspring than the starved one, 

 the practical significance of the result is obvious and the 



