Some hold that this development has been by leaps, others by slow, impercep-
tible modifications. Others, the Darwinists, explain in part how these slow
modifications have arisen. Every organic structure has planted within its very
being a tendency to vary. The botanist and the horticulturist, no less than
the stock breeder and the naturalist, observe this fact daily. ‘Thus we have
the sports among organisms in the garden, the forest, as well as among the
animate tribes that sport in them. ‘he field of existeuce is crowded—over-


ANNUAL MEETING. 117


crowded—and those varieties which are strongest will alone survive. Lastly,
the law of inheritance fixes then some strong points that enabled their
possessors to win in the “struggle for existence.’’ Wesee then why ‘survival
of the fittest?’ and ‘‘natural selection’? are terms for descent, as explained
by Darwin. Nature is daily showing to the horticulturist the truth of a1
these facts, as explained so graphically by the great philosopher.
The evolution of this doctrine is most interesting. Descartes in his philos-
ophy gave the germ, the mere lichen, which, with Lamarck, developed into a
blooming shrub, though unattractive. While Mathew, the floriculturist,
brought out the Darwinian bloom, which failed, however, to attract the popu-
lar gaze. Darwin and Wallace left the theory a symmetrical tree, whose
bloom and fr: agrance reached to all civilized nations. Now every scientist is
pruning, gr afting, mulching, etc., that this goodly growth may soon advance
to perfection.
