What will the great-granddaughter of this same woman have to serve in 1950? It is certain that twenty years from now will see some notable changes in fruits and vegetables. Already lettuce, fresh peas, beans, and tomatoes are available nearly every month in the year. Instead of being grown on nearby farms, they come from Florida, California, Mexico, and Africa. New varieties are being developed that will grow better and yield more in the new localities, that will stand long shipment and be better colored and more attractive when put on display. Already early and productive stringless beans are available, so that there is no excuse for a stringy bean on any market. The Cortland apple hangs on to the tree, is well colored and productive, and has a better flavor than its Mcintosh seed parent in spite of the fact that its pollen parent was the Ben Davis. The Mikado and Golden Jubilee peaches are new names with which the housewife will soon become familiar. Early Sunshine and Whipple sweet corn are replacing Golden Bantam because they are earlier and handsomer. Sheridan grapes have a richer flavor than the old Concord, and the Portland ripens days ahead of any other grape. Blueberries as big as cranberries can now be grown in any garden where the soil and climate are suitable. Not a single variety of major importance eighty years ago is a leading variety at the present time. Many of the best fruits, flowers, and vegetables of the present day were then unknown. How were these new plants produced? In some cases they were merely chance discoveries.

A schoolmaster by the name of Stair went strolling around the countryside in England about a century ago and came upon a pear tree that attracted his attention on account of its handsome crop of smooth, bright yellow fruit. How this tree came to be where it was, nobody knew. Perhaps a squirrel on his way to his cache had dropped a seed, or a boy may have thrown a core over the fence. Anyway, there it was, uncultivated and unpruned, its branches lopped by grazing livestock; yet it bore fruit so sweet and tender that Stair decided it was worth cultivating. At the proper time scions were cut and grafted into his orchard. In a few years these bore fruit. The attention of a neighboring nurseryman was drawn to this new pear. His name was William. Soon the new variety, known as the Williams pear, was distributed over the British Islands wherever pears were grown.

French and Belgian nurserymen were keenly interested in pears, but thought that another name would be more suitable; so when the Williams pear crossed the channel, it was renamed Le Bon Chretien, and by this name it is now well known in Europe and Australia. Sooner or later such a good fruit was sure to come to America but, by the compensation of fate, its French name was lost on the way. It did so well in a garden at Roxbury, Massachusetts, that a man by the name of Bartlett, who had bought the place, thought that it should be made generally available; and, as he was not averse to having his own name attached to such a good fruit, this pear has since been known everywhere in the United States as the Bartlett. The trainloads of canned pears from California are mostly Bartletts, and four out of every five boxes sold on the fruit stand are from trees that are lineal descendants by vegetative propagation from the original tree that schoolmaster Stair found so long ago in England.

Near Newport, Rhode Island, Captain Green kept an inn that was famous in Colonial times for its apple pies. One of the important factors in the excellence of these culinary delights was a tree that grew in the seedling orchard nearby. As an especial favor Captain Green gave his guests scions from this tree. Spread around New England, Green's Inn apple became famous, and to-day the Rhode Island Greening is one of the "New England Seven" varieties of apples recommended for commercial planting.

In this way have come many varieties of fruit and quite a long list of vegetables and flowers. Conscious selection has played an important part, for man, since earliest times, has recognized the importance of heredity; and, while often disappointed, he has learned that, in a general way,"like produces like" and "to produce the best, it is necessary to breed from the best."

Seventy years ago Balzac wrote that "heredity is a sort of maze in which science loses itself,"and he was right. Since that time biologists have learned much about inheritance, and mostly from one man, an Austrian monk. Gregor Mendel, abbot of Brunn, showed how it was possible to take a dwarf green-seeded pea and a tall yellow-seeded pea and by cross-fertilization to produce a dwarf yellow and a tall green pea. Starting with two old varieties, he now had two new varieties. Some of these new plants bred true, and some did not. Mendel showed what was to be expected from a cross of this kind in the following generations, what was the best procedure to bring together - in the same individual - characters that had existed separately before, and what to do to make these varieties reproduce true to type. From this modest start, workers in scientific laboratories have extended knowledge of heredity to many animals and plants. They can tell why it is that certain characters disappear in one generation and reappear in the next, why it is that the offspring have qualities that the parents did not exhibit, why some individuals are weak and sterile and easy victims of disease, and why others are strong and virile.