The occurrence of organic acids, or their derivatives, which have pronounced odors or flavors, in the flesh surrounding the seeds of fruits, in the endosperm of vegetable seeds, or in the tubers, etc., of perennial plants, thus making them attractive as food for animals and men, undoubtedly serves to insure a wider distribution of the reproductive organs of these plants; a fact which has unquestionably had a marked influence upon the survival of species in the competitive struggle for existence during past eras and in the development and cultivation of different species by man. Indirect evidence that the proportion of these attractive compounds present in certain species may have been considerably increased by the processes of "natural selection" in the past is furnished by the many successful attempts to increase the percentage of such desirable constituents in fruits or vegetables by means of artificial selection of parent stocks by skillful plant breeders.
