On the Progress of Science

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. NOTES CONTRIBUTED FOR THE * 'IMPROVEMENT ERA" BY THE FACULTY OF SCIENCE, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY, AND EDITED BY DR. JOHN A. WIDTSOE. Introduction of New Plants. New plants are each year being introduced into our country by plantsmen, seedsmen, botanical gardens, and the private estab- lishments of many wealthy persons. The U. S. Department of Agriculture maintains a regularly organized office for the introduction of nev/ plants, called the Office of Seed and Plant Introduction and Distribution. Expert botanists and agricultural explorers are engaged in the work of discovering new and valuable plants in all parts of the world, importing these into America and placing them in the hands of trained experimenters. Another feature of this work is the test- ing in new ways of old and well-known plants. As illustrations of the importance of this work there might be cited the establishment in California and Arizona of the Alge- rian and Arabian date palm industry, and also of the Smyrna fig. Some of the recent importations which give promise of eco- nomic and ornamental value have come from Western and Northern China and from Manchuria. At the present time Secretary Wil- son of the U. S. Department of Agriculture is having tests made of various plants which it is expected will prove of very great value in the arid regions of the West. In the systematic carrying out of this work it is expected that the United States, with almost every possible range of

386 IMPROVEMENT ERA. climate and soil conditions of the globe, will become independent of all other nations as far as plant culture is concerned. — Wil- liam H. Homer, Jr. , B. S. How can Animals be Distinguished? Every animal, in fact every living being, has individual char- acteristics which distinguish it from every other individual. It has also characteristics which are common to other individuals. Likenesses express relationships, and usually the closer the rela- tionship the closer the likeness. A small group of similar ani- mals has characters common to other groups: this group of groups has characters common to other groups of groups. There are groups of the first order, groups of the second order, of the third, of the fourth, and so on until we reach the two great groups of living beings. Groups are not distinct, but, just as in the case of plants and animals, there occur intermediate forms that make a clear defini- tion impossible. Nature has no boundary lines, and should one appear it is the best kind of evidence that the intermediate forms are either extinct or have not yet been discovered. Uniformity of Life in Early Times. Why do intermediate forms occur between animals and between plants? Why are all living beings so much alike? Living beings, of course, are alive, or have life. What life is we do not know, we can study it only through the behavior of matter under its influence. It, evidently, is something that is transmitted from parent to offspring, and the forms of both par- ent and offspring resemble each other. Things now living have received their life from related forms that preceded them, they are but the last links of the chains along which life has heen transmitted from the past to the present. If it were possible to follow back along these chains, would we find them issuing from one source or from several? The problem is a difficult one. Most of the forms have decayed; some of them, more stable than the rest, have left records of their bodies, and these lie buried in the depths of the earth. A few have been found; here and there the lines of transmission have been touched, sometimes closely asso-

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 387 ciated, sometimes widely separated; but the deeper we go into the earth's surface, the farther back into the past, the more nearly alike do the links become. The lines seem to converge. The forms 01 animals and plants, so diversified upon the earth today, become more and more alike as we follow back along the lines of descent, until we reach a point where all life seems to have been exhibited in forms of the greatest likeness and simplicity. Why Living Beings Change. Why is there so much difference between plants and between animals? Why are living beings so unlike? Things that are exactly alike, and that are subjected to exactly the same influences will behave in exactly the same man- ner. Can you find two branches alike? Can you find two flowers alike? Can you find two seeds exactly alike? How can you, then, expect to find two plants alike? The offspring always resembles, but is never exactly like the parent, and the greater the differ- ences in the parents, the greater the differences in the offspring. While there is a tendency for like to produce like, there is also a tendency to variation just as universal. Characteristics of the parents are transmitted to the offspring, but perhaps never in the same degree to any two. The second generation will also be un- like each other, will resemble the immediate ancestors more and those more remote less. When variations favor one plant or one animal above another, it has a better opportunity to reproduce its kind, and consequently to transmit the favorable variation. The more uniform the conditions under which things live, the more uniform they become in structure and in habits; the more diversified the conditions, the greater the variations. This is remarkably illustrated by the numerous plants and animals in which man has become interested. By modifying environment and by selecting parents, he has induced greater variation; and by per- sistent, judicious selection of those forms having the qualities he most desired, by working in harmony with Nature's laws, he has succeeded in promoting his own comfort, welfare and happiness.— a G. Van Buren, B. S.