MAN-MADE PLANTS 
93 
experiment. When the seeds formed from 
these flowers, he saved and planted them. 
Later, when the flowers came from these seeds, 
he studied them carefully. Just as a little girl 
may have curly hair like her mother and blue 
eyes like her father, so some of these flowers 
were large and tall like the English daisy and 
a beautiful white like the Japanese. When¬ 
ever a flower had a good quality that he wanted 
to keep, he crossed the pollen from it with an¬ 
other good flower and saved the seed. When 
the plants grew from this seed, he saved only 
the best ones. Those that were tall, straight, 
white, large, strong, and many blossomed were 
chosen and he burned the rest. He selected the 
seed and planted it every year for eight years, 
destroying always those flowers that were not 
just right. All of this time was necessary be¬ 
cause plants inherit bad traits from their ances¬ 
tors just as people do. He wanted to be sure 
that none of the seeds would produce flowers 
that were small, straggly, or a dirty white color. 
At the end of eight years he was sure that the 
