Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

Say there be;

Yet nature is made better by no mean

But nature makes that mean: so, over that art,

Which you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentler scion to the wildest stock,

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race: this is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather, but

The art itself is nature.

 

-Polixenes

 

The Winter’s Tale           Act IV, Scene iii, Line 93

 

Whilst it may sound a little bit like doubletalk (and perhaps be a little hard to understand), Polixenes is talking about plants and about grafting to crossbreed plants. But of course, the reference goes beyond the plants and has relevance to the fact that the sweet maid being spoken to by Polixenes appears to be a shepherd’s daughter when in fact she is a King’s daughter. No crossbreeding needed there.

This is actually last year's crop. I couldn't find any good pictures of this year's. Now I'm guessing there's a bit of crossbreeding involved in these tomatoes. To be sure, we didn't do the crossbreeding; we just buy the starter plants. But I'm pretty sure there was crossbreeding done somewhere along the line.