Abbot Kinney

The Conquest of Death Abbot Kinney

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893. Excerpt: ... Cross fertilization in fruits often produces surprising perfection of quality, together also with a lack or total absence of fertility. In the same species, however, varieties combined in breeding give a greater plasticity and capacity for change than we see in members of the same variety. Darwin speaks of cross fertilization as being productive of the most vigorous plants. Fritz Muller shows that, in at least some flowers, the different parts, male and female, in the same blossom do not fertilize each other. The male element must be carried to another flower. This would indicate that in such plants qualities preventing close or continued in-breeding have been most favorable to life. The most beautiful of California flowers (Romneya Coulteri), a poppy, is said to have few fertile seeds when planted alone, but to have a large seed vitality when planted in masses. This is a characteristic of many California wild flowers, which, when found in vigor, grow naturally in beds and masses, and so form striking features in such spring landscapes as are not conquered to the plow. Consequently, when we are in face of changing conditions as we are to-day, and probably always will be, we may with advantage make excursions out0 of an established breed of men to secure change and adaptation to advances. At the same time we must be careful not to go too far lest we run up against the dead wall of sterility. It may occasionally be necessary to sacrifice some points of breeding to secure reproductive power. This power is often weak in the well bred of animals, and probably will be equally so in well-bred men. An incident of success in our present life is usually wealth. A wealthy woman seldom makes a good wife, and still more rarely is she happy as a wife or does she make a...