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 has taken centuries or thousands of years to improve or
modify most of our plants up to their present standard of usefulness to
man, we can understand how it is that neither Australia, the Cape of Good
Hope, nor any other region inhabited by quite uncivilised man, has afforded
us a single plant worth culture.
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