Chap. I. 
UKCONSCIOUS SELECTION, 
37 
or not two or more species or races have become 
blended together by crossing, may plainly be recognised 
in the increased size and beauty which we now see in the 
varieties of the heartsease, rose, pelargonium, dahlia, and 
other plants, when compared with the older varieties or 
with their parent-stocks. No one would ever expect to 
get a first-rate heartsease or dahlia from the seed of a 
wild plant. No one would expect to raise a first-rate 
melting pear from the seed of the wild pear, though 
he might succeed from a poor seedling growing wild, 
if it had come from a garden-stock. The pear, though 
cultivated in classical times, appears, from Pliny’s de¬ 
scription, to have been a fruit of very inferior quality. 
I have seen great surprise expressed in horticultural works 
at the wonderful skill of gardeners, in having produced 
such splendid results from such poor materials; but the 
art, I cannot doubt, has been simple, and, as far as the 
final result is concerned, has been followed almost un¬ 
consciously. It has consisted in always cultivating the 
best known variety, sowing its seeds, and, when a slightly 
better variety has chanced to appear, selecting it, and 
so onwards. But the gardeners of the classical period, 
who cultivated the best pear they could procure, never 
thought what splendid fruit we should eat; though we 
owe our excellent fruit, in some small degree, to their 
having naturally chosen and preserved the best varieties 
they could anywhere find. 
A large amount of change in our cultivated plants, 
thus slowly and unconsciously accumulated, explains, as 
I believe, the well-known fact, that in a vast number of 
cases we cannot recognise, and therefore do not know, 
the wild parent-stocks of the plants which have been 
longest cultivated in our flower and kitchen gardens. 
If it has taken centuries or thousands of years to im¬ 
prove or modify most of our plants up to their present 
