BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN 
LEAFLETS 
THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
Series II Brooklyn, N. Y., September 9, 1914 Number 8 
HEREDITY, VARIATION AND 
ENVIRONMENT 
"Flower in the crannied wall, 
1 pluck you out of the crannies, 
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
Little flower— but if I could understand 
What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
I should know what God and man is.” 
Endless variety is the most noticeable thing about the world 
in which we live. So seldom do we find two living things the 
exact duplicates of each other, that when we do they are very likely 
to excite great wonderment. Our friends are short, tall or medium 
in height; blue, brown, gray or black eyed; red, brown, gray or 
black haired; flat, hooked, straight or bent nosed. The plants 
in our windows and yards possess no two leaves, nor flowers, nor 
branches exactly alike, and the differences between the individual 
plants themselves, when examined closely, even when belonging 
to the same variety, are as marked as those by which we distin- 
guish our friends from each other. So great a place in the living 
world has this thing we call variability that, with all their very 
best efforts put forward, our breeders, agriculturists and seeds- 
men cannot keep it within legitimate bounds. Vegetable and 
flowering plants must be extremely carefully watched on the big 
seed farms to keep down the rogues, or worthless variations. 
Stock breeders must be ever on the alert to keep their breeding 
animals up to the standard breed type. Grain growers, potato 
farmers and florists suffer from the so-called running out of once 
valuable varieties. Disease-resistant wheat from Australia almost 
