Or, finally, they may revert to an ancestral form.  As offspring tend to resemble grandparents almost as much as parents, and as a line of close-bred ancestry is generally prepotent, so newly-originated varieties have always a tendency to reversion.  This is pretty sure to show itself in some of the progeny of the earlier generations, and the breeder has to guard against it by rigid selection.  But the older the variety is—­that is, the longer the series of generations in which it has come true from seed—­the less the chance of reversion:  for now, to be like the immediate parents, is also to be like a long line of ancestry; and so all the influences concerned—–­ that is, both parental and ancestral heritability—­act in one and the same direction.  So, since the older a race is the more reason it has to continue true, the presumption of the unlimited permanence of old races is very strong.

Of course the race itself may give off new varieties; but that is no interference with the vitality of the original stock.  If some of the new varieties supplant the old, that will not be because the unvaried stock is worn out or decrepit with age, but because in wild Nature the newer forms are better adapted to the surroundings, or, under man’s care, better adapted to his wants or fancies.

The second question, and one upon which the discussion about the wearing out of varieties generally turns, is, Will varieties propagated from buds, i.e., by division, grafts, bulbs, tubers, and the like, necessarily deteriorate and die out?  First, Do they die out as a matter of fact?  Upon this, the testimony has all along been conflicting.  Andrew Knight was sure that they do, and there could hardly be a more trustworthy witness.

“The fact,” he says, fifty years ago, “that certain varieties of some species of fruit which have been long cultivated cannot now be made to grow in the same soils and under the same mode of management, which was a century ago so perfectly successful, is placed beyond the reach of controversy.  Every experiment which seemed to afford the slightest prospect of success was tried by myself and others to propagate the old varieties of the apple and pear which formerly constituted the orchards of Herefordshire, without a single healthy or efficient tree having been obtained; and I believe all attempts to propagate these varieties have, during some years, wholly ceased to be made.”

To this it was replied, in that and the next generation, that cultivated vines have been transmitted by perpetual division from the time of the Romans, and that several of the sorts, still prized and prolific, are well identified, among them the ancient Graecula, considered to be the modern Corinth or currant grape, which has immemorially been seedless; that the old nonpareil apple was known in the time of Queen Elizabeth; that the white beurre pears of France have been propagated from the earliest times; and that golden pippins, St. Michael pears, and others said to have run out, were still to be had in good condition.