I have in vain endeavoured to discover on what decisive facts the above statement has so often and so boldly been made.

There would be great difficulty in proving its truth: we may safely conclude that very many of the most strongly marked domestic varieties could not possibly live in a wild state.

In many cases we do not know what the aboriginal stock was, and so could not tell whether or not nearly perfect reversion had ensued.

It would be necessary, in order to prevent the effects of intercrossing, that only a single variety should be turned loose in its new home.

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil--in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the DEFINITE action of the poor soil--that they would, to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.