Origin of Species Variorum

→ — I speak after careful observation, — perhaps 1866 1869 1872

perhaps 1859 1860

I speak after careful observation, perhaps 1861

→ OMIT 1860 1861 1866 1869 1872

I may add, 1859

→ works of high antiquity, in which the full 1872

the full acknowledgment of the 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

→ is acknowledged. 1872

in works of high antiquity. 1859 1860 1861 1866 1869

trifling instance, the steadily-increasing size of the common gooseberry may be quoted. We see an astonishing improvement in many

florists

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 kind of selection is, in fact,

also

likewise

followed; for hardly any one is so careless as to

allow

breed from

his worst

animals

animals.

....

breed.

....

In regard to plants, there is another means of observing the accumulated effects of selection — namely, by comparing the diversity of flowers in the different varieties of the same species in the flower-garden; the diversity 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 same 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 points; this is hardly ever, →— I speak after careful observation, — perhaps never, the case. The

laws

law

correlation

correlated

of growth,

variation,

the importance of which should never be overlooked, will ensure some differences; but, as a general rule,

cannot

doubt

be doubted

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,

result

→OMIT has been, in a corresponding degree, rapid and important. But it is very far from true that the principle is a modern discovery. I could give several references to →works of high antiquity, in which the full importance of the principle →is acknowledged. In rude and barbarous periods of English history choice animals were often imported, and laws were passed to prevent their exportation: the destruction of horses under a certain size was ordered, and this may be compared to the "roguing" of plants by nurserymen. The principle of selection I find distinctly given in an ancient Chinese

encyclopædia.

ency- clopædia.