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Show 36 METHODICAL SELECTION. [CHAP. I. berry may be quoted. We see an astonishing improvement in many florists' flowers, when t~e flowers of the present day are compared with drawings made onl;r twenty or thirty years ago. When a ~ace of plants. 1s once pretty well established, the seed-raisers .do not pick out the best plants, but 1nerely go over then~ seed-beds, and pull up the "rogues," as they cal~ the ~lants th~t deviate fr01n the proper standard. With animals this kind of selection is, in fact, also followed; for hardly any one is so careless as to allow his worst animals to breed. In reO'ard to plants, there is another means of observing the accu~ulated effects of selection-namely, by comparing the diversity of :£:lowers in the different v.arict~es of the same species in the flower-garden; the d1vers1ty of leaves, pods, or tubers, or whatever part is valued, in the kitchen-garden, in comparison with the flowers of the same varieties ; and the diversity of fruit of the same species in the orchard, in comparison with the leaves and flowers of the san1e set of varieties. See how different the leaves of the cabbage are, and how extremely alike the flowers ; how unlike the flowers of the heartsease are, and how alike the leaves ; how· much the fruit of the different kinds of gooseberries differ in size, colour, shape, and hairiness, and yet the flowers present very slight differences. It is not that the varieties which differ largely in some one point do not differ at all in other rroints ; this is hardly ever, perhaps never, the case. fhe laws of correlation of ·growth, the hnportance of which should never be overlooked, will ensure some-differences ; but, as a general rule, I cannot doubt that the continued selection of slight variations, either in the leaves, the flowers, or the fruit, will produce races differing from each other chiefly in these characters. It may be objected that the principle of selection has been reduced to methodical practice for scarcely more than three-quarters of a century; it has certainly been more attended to of late years, and many treatises have been published on the subject; and the result, I may add, has been, in a corresponding degree, rapid and important. But it is very far from true that the principle is a modern CH.A.P. 1.] METHODICAL SELECTIO~. 31 discovery. I could give several references to the full acknowled~ment ?f :he importance of the principle in works o~ h1g~ ant1qu1t1. In ;rude and barbarous periods of Enghsh history chowe animals were often imported and law_s were passed to prevent their exportation: th~ destruc.tlon of horses under a certain size was ordered and this Inay be compared to the "roO'uing" of plant~ ~y nurse;ryme~. The principle of sel~ction I find distu~ c~ly given 1n .an ancient Chinese encyclopredia. Exph? It rules are la1d down by some of the Roman classical wnters. From p~ssag~s in Genesis, it is clear that the colour of domestic animals was at that early period atte?- ded to: Sav~ges now sometimes cross their dogs wHh Wild cani~e animais, to improve the breed, and they formerly. d1d so, as IS attested by passages in Pliny. The savages 1n South Africa match their draught cattle by c~l~ur, as do son1e of the Esquimaux their teams of dogs. Livingstone shows how much good domestic breeds are valued by the negroes of the interior of Africa who have not associated with Europeans. Some of these facts do not show ~ctua~ selection, but they show that the breeding o.f domestic. animals was carefully attended to in ancient times, ~nd IS now attended to by the lowest savages. It would, 1~deed, have .been a strange fact, had attention not been pa1d to breeding, for the inheritance of O'OOd and bad qualities is so obvious. 5 At th~ pres~nt tirr;e,, en1ine~t breeders try by methodical ~election, w1th a distinct obJect in ·view, to make a new strain or sub-breed, superior to any thing existing in the country. But, for our purpose, a kind of Selection which may be.called Unconscious, and which results fro~ every on~ tryn~g to pos~ess and breed from the best individua: anrm.als, IS. more Important. Thus, a man who intends keep1ng pointers naturally tries to get as good dogs as he can, and ~fterwards bree~s from his own best dogs, but he has no w1sh or expectation of permanently altering the bree~. N ever.theless I ?annot doul;>t that this process, contmued ~unng centunes, would Improve and modify an;r breed, 1n the same way as Bakewell, Collins, &c., b'' tlns very same process, only carried on more methodicall" ;, |