"We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation"
About this Quote
The detail about “the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants” is also slyly loaded. It’s an early sketch of selective breeding logic, but phrased as folk technique rather than laboratory method. Fortune concedes it’s “not at all unlikely,” which signals openness to empirical insight coming from outside formal science, while keeping his own epistemic hands clean. That tension matters in Fortune’s world: nineteenth-century botany is entangled with commerce and empire, where plant knowledge can be a tool of extraction as much as discovery. His careful hedging is a kind of professional self-defense, a way to remain trustworthy amid a marketplace of claims.
The subtext: observation is currency, and he’s telling the reader what he can’t pay for. It’s less about seeds than about scientific posture - modest, strategic, and calibrated to an audience that wants actionable information but also wants to believe it’s getting truth.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Fortune, Robert. (2026, January 16). We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-are-told-that-the-first-part-of-the-process-is-98186/
Chicago Style
Fortune, Robert. "We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-are-told-that-the-first-part-of-the-process-is-98186/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"We are told that the first part of the process is to select the very smallest seeds from the smallest plants, which is not at all unlikely, but I cannot speak to the fact from my own observation." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/we-are-told-that-the-first-part-of-the-process-is-98186/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
