rly useful to them, for any special purpose, would be carefully
preserved during famines and other accidents, to which savages are
so liable, and such choice animals would thus generally leave more
offspring than the inferior ones; so that in this case there would be a
kind of unconscious selection going on. We see the value set on animals
even by the barbarians of Tierra del Fuego, by their killing and
devouring their old women, in times of dearth, as of less value than
their dogs.

In plants the same gradual process of improvement through the occasional
preservation of the best individuals, whether or not sufficiently
distinct to be ranked at their first appearance as distinct varieties,
and whether or not two or more species or races have become blended
together by crossing, may plainly be recognised in the increased size
and beauty which we now see in the varieties of the heartsease, rose,
pelargonium, dahlia, and other plants, when compared with the older
varieties or with their parent-stocks. No one would ever expect to get
a first-rate heartsease or dahlia from the seed of a wild plant. No one
would expect to raise a first-rate melting pear from the seed of a wild
pear, though he might succeed from a poor seedling growing wild, if it
had come from a garden-stock. The pear, though cultivated in classical
times, appears, from Pliny's description, to have been a fruit of very
inferior quality. I have seen great surprise expressed in horticultural
works at the wonderful skill of gardeners in having produced such
splendid results from such poor materials; but the art has been simple,
and, as far as the final result is concerned, has been followed almost
unconsciously. It has consisted in always cultivating the best known
variety, sowing its seeds, and, when a slightly better variety chanced
to appear, selecting it, and so onwards. But the gardeners of the
classical period, who cultivated the best pears which they could
procure, never thought what splendid fruit we should eat; though we
owe our excellent fruit in some small degree to their having naturally
chosen and preserved the best varieties they could anywhere find.

A large amount of change, thus slowly and unconsciously accumulated,
explains, as I believe, the well-known fact, that in a number of cases
we cannot recognise, and therefore do not know, the wild parent-stocks
of the plants which have been longest cultivated in our flower and
kitchen gardens. If it