Of course this possibility cannot be denied, at least in any single
instance, but it seems too sweeping an assertion to make for the whole
range of observed forms.
The alternative theory is that of van Mons, the Belgian originator of
commercial varieties of apples, who has published his experiments in a
large work called "Arbres fruitiers ou Pomonomie belge." Most of the
more remarkable apples of the first half of the last century were
produced by van Mons, but his greatest merit is not the direct
production of a number of good varieties, but the foundation of the
method, by which new varieties may be obtained and improved.
According to van Mons, the production of a new variety consists chiefly
of two parts. The first is the discovery of a subspecies with new
desirable qualities. The second is the transformation [77] of the
original small and woody apple into a large, fleshy and palatable
variety. Subspecies, or what we now call elementary species were not
produced by man; nature alone creates new forms, as van Mons has it. He
examined with great care the wild apples of his country, and especially
those of the Ardennes, and found among them a number of species with
different flavors. For the flavor is the one great point, which must be
found ready in nature and which may be improved, but can never be
created by artificial selection.
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