[August, 
548 Seed-Breeding . 
in plants of a more sportive nature, but is the outcome of a 
set of conditions which have been of a similar character for 
a long period. The same kind of heredity, neither necessa- 
rily stronger nor weaker, leads the cultivated plant to vary. 
Hence we may say that fixity or unfixity of type is no proof 
of heredity, and that it is but in the conditions which have 
availed in the past that the heredity which produces likeness 
is to be sought. 
This tendency that exists throughout Nature for one life 
to produce in its offspring the characteristics of its past, as 
well as the modifications which have availed in its near 
ancestry, is the law of heredity. It is a true law, which 
cannot be said to be manifested by exaCt likeness of an off- 
spring to its progenitor, because we have instances of alter- 
nate generation which shows this not to be so ; but it is a 
genealogical expression which is to be interpreted that the 
life transmits itself in its modifications ; and to know what 
these are, in order to use this law to our advantage, we must 
have the history of the precedinglives, — that is,agenealogical 
record. Now, in the case of a seed, we desire to aCt upon 
this knowledge of what the law of heredity as applied to 
breeding is, and not saying that the like seed produces a 
like seed, must realise that the total seed of a plant may 
produce some good, some bad seed, — some good plants, 
some poor plants, — some plants better, some worse than 
itself ; and that it is heredity which produces these varia- 
tions, and that we can through the process of selection 
modify the heredity of the future, so as to influence future 
seedings. It is this gradual gain, through the influencing 
the heredity of the seed, that concerns the seed-breeder. 
This would seem to imply that the tendency of the seed is 
to reproduce the plant from which it was grown. This is 
indeed so, because, speaking of the plant as a whole, it may 
be said to have in its structure a species of inertia , — that is, 
it tends to keep the form and condition it already has, ex- 
cept as diverted therefrom by cause. We cannot think of a 
change happening to a life without some cause to produce 
it ; and in just so far, and in just that direction that causes 
have aCted, and continue to aCt, must this inertia of the 
plant life be overcome, and the change which is adequate 
to the cause take place. So far from reasoning to prove 
that continuation of a form in a species does exist, we pre- 
fer to say that it must be so from the law of Nature, and 
challenge others to show the contrary, the burden of proof 
being with them. Hence, from our point of view, the vari- 
ations we produce in a plant must be transmitted through 
