We have proofs that this is not so in several cases in which exact records have been kept; thus, to give a very trifling instance, the steadily increasing size of the common gooseberry may be quoted.

We see an astonishing improvement in many florists' flowers, when the flowers of the present day are compared with drawings made only twenty or thirty years ago.

When a race of plants is once pretty well established, the seed-raisers do not pick out the best plants, but merely go over their seed-beds, and pull up the "rogues," as they call the plants that deviate from the proper standard.