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Show 32 SELECTION BY MAN. CHAP. I. all the best breeders are strongly opposed to this practice, except sometimes amongst closely allied sub-breeds. And when a cross has been made, the closest selection is far more indispensable even than in ordinary cases. If selection consisted merely in separating some very distinct variety, and breeding from it, the principle would be so obvious as hardly to be worth notice; but its importance consists in the great effect produced by the accumulation in one direction, during successive generations, of differences absolutely inappreciable by an uneducated eye-differences which I for one have vainly attempted to appreciate. Not one man in a thou~and has accuracy of eye and judgment sufficient to become an eminent breeder. If gifted with these qualities, and he studies his subject for years, and devotes his lifetime to it with indomitable perseverance, he will succeed, and may make great improvements ; if he wants any of these qualities, he will assuredly fail. Few would readily believe in the natural capacity and years of practice requisite to become even a skilful pigeon-fancier. The same principles are followed by horticulturists ; but the variations are here often more abrupt. No one supposes that our .choicest productions have been produced by a single variation from the aboriginal stock. We have proofs that this is not so in some cases, in which exact records have been kept; thus, to give a very trifling instance, the steadily-increasing size of the common gooseberry may be quoted. We see an astonishing improvement in many florists' flowers, when the flowers of the present day are compared with drawings made only twenty or thirty years ago. When a race of plants is once pretty well established, the seed-raisers do not pick out the best plants, but merely go over their seed-beds, and. pull up the "rogues," as they call the plants that deviate from the proper standard. With animals this CHAP. I. METHODICAL SELECTION. 33 kind. of selection is, in fact, also followed; for hardly any on~ IS so careless as to allow his worst animal to breed . n :egard to plants, there is another means of ob erv~ Ing t e. accumulated effects of selection-name! b c?mpanng the diversity of flowers in the diffe t y, . y ties of the same species in the flower-garden . th:e~iv:;7te- ~! 1::~, pods, or t~bers, or whatever parl is valued ~ sa:e c ~n~¥arden, m comparison with the flower of the . v~ne Ies; and the diversity of fruit of the sa species In the orchard · . me flowers of the same s~;no~omp~~I.son with the leaves and the leaves of the cabb vane Ies. See how different the flowers; how unl;!~h:r: and how extremely alike and how alike th I owers of the heartsease are e eaves · ho h ' different kinds of goose be : di~ m~c the fruit of the d h · . rnes uer In size 1 h a~ all'mess, and yet the fl 'co our, s ape, differences. It is not that t~wers :f!re~ent v~ry slight largely in some one . t e v~eties which differ points; this is hardlypoin do not differ at all in other Th e I aws of correlatione vefr , perhaps ne ver, the ca e. which should never be ov~rl!~wtd h, .the importance of ferences . but as a I e ' Will en ure some dif- ' ' genera 1 I the continued selection of sli ~~ e, . c~nnot doubt that leaves, the flowers o th gfr :anations, either in the di:ffie ri.n g from each o' ther r cheie fl m. t' will produce rae It may be objected that th y I~ t~ese character . been reduced to meth d. 1 e principle of s lection ha than three-quarters of ao Icat practice for scarcely more m cen ury · it h . ore attended to of late ' as certainly been been published on the y~~rs, and many treatise have add, has been m' su aect ; and the result I rna · ' a correspond· d ' Y u;nportant. But it is v mg egree, rapid and mple is a modern di ery far from true that the pri scovery I ld . n-ences to the full kn . cou give several r :D th . . ac owledgment f th . e er-e Pl'lllmple in works of hi h ? . e Importance of g antiqmty. In rude and c3 |
