Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/392

376 true of many of our tree fruits, the navel orange being a striking example. Along with the absence of seeds and the presence of fine flavor there is truly a monstrous form, in that one orange is within and at the "navel" end of the other.

Should we glance at some of our garden vegetables, as, for example, the cabbages in their various races, every one will be struck with the strangeness, to say the least, of the forms produced. In contrast with the head of the true cabbage, where leaf is folded upon leaf until a mass of metamorphosed foliage as large as a half bushel is produced, there is the cauliflower, with the edible substance stored in a fleshy inflorescence that has lost its normal function and become truly monstrous. Were it not so tender and delicate a food we might be disposed to smile at the absurdity of the whole thing, or at the kohl-rabi, with its turniplike bulb in the stem just above the surface of the ground. It is certainly a plastic species that will give such diverse and fantastic forms—so far from the wild state, and for that reason so useful to mail.

In the same manner a comparison of our orchard fruits with the forms from which they came would lead to the thought that man has made them to his liking, and not for service to the plant species. They are abnormal, judged by all standards in Nature; monstrous in size and in many cases have lost their essential structure as seed-producing organs.

Coming to the ornamental grounds, the disguises are largely swept away, and there is but little hope of judging what the original plants may have been from which have descended the favorites of the flower bed and the conservatory. Species have been split into a thousand and one varieties, each with its peculiarities and each with the potency for greater deviation. Where shall we cast the line and land an example? The rose show of June is only surpassed by the chrysanthemum exhibition in autumn. There must be the new sorts brought out each year, whether the fancy be for a special shade or color or a striking new shape of bud or form of bloom. Would you realize what a novelty means to those in the craft who watch a group of carnation growers as they hang over the exhibit of a "new" rival, and consider all the merits and defects of the candidate for a certificate?

All the beauties of the flower garden are so familiar to us that it is not expected that they will be considered unnatural. If the hydrangea makes a panicle larger than it can bear, man helps it out with a string or stake, for by overdoing it is not undone any more than is the coddled peach tree held up at fruiting time by a dozen poles, or the forced lily with a weak back supported upright by an artificial green stem at church on Easter morning.