LUTHER BURBANK'S WORK 367 



cases, reproduce faithfully the parents, but will produce a very variable 

 lot of individuals, most of them strongly reversionary in character. 

 Grow peach trees from the stones of your favorite peach and see what 

 manner of peaches you get ; but if you want to be sure of more peaches 

 like the ones you enjoy, graft scions from your tree on to other trees. 

 Indeed one of the plant-breeder's favorite methods of making a start 

 for new things, of getting the requisite beginning wealth and eccen- 

 tricity of variation, is to grow seedlings, especially from cross-bred 

 varieties. Burbank will give you a thousand dollars for a pinch of 

 horse-radish seed. Sugar-cane seed is needed. The amelioration of 

 many kinds of fruit and flowers and vegetables is checked, because in 

 our carelessness we have allowed these kinds to get into that condition 

 of seedlessness which almost all cultivated races tend toward when 

 grown from cuttings. In our oranges and grape-fruit and in a score 

 of other fruits, the elimination of seeds is exactly one of the modifica- 

 tions we have bred and selected for, in order to make the fruits less 

 troublesome in their eating. But when we lose the seeds entirely of 

 a whole group of related plant kinds we may find ourselves, as we have 

 found ourselves actually in many cases, at the end of our powers of 

 amelioration of these plant sorts. Burbank believes that the very fact 

 that plants when grown asexually always sooner or later lose their 

 power to produce seeds is almost sufficient proof (if such proof is 

 needed) that acquired characters are transmitted. 



Another of Burbank's open secrets of success is the great range of 

 his experimentation — nothing is too bold for him to attempt, the 

 chances of failure are never too great to frighten him. And another 

 secret is the great extent, as regards material used, of each experiment. 

 His beds of seedlings contain hundreds, often thousands, of individuals 

 where other men are content with hundreds. Another element in his 

 work is his prodigality of time. Experiments begun twenty years ago 

 are actually still under way. 



In all that I have so far written, I have purposely kept to general 

 statements applicable to Burbank's work as a whole. My readers might 

 be more interested, perhaps, to have some illustrations of the applica- 

 tion of various processes of making new sorts of things, some analytical 

 account of the history of various specific ' new creations,' but con- 

 siderations of space practically forbid this. Just a few briefly de- 

 scribed examples must suffice. More than is generally imagined, per- 

 haps, Burbank uses pure selection to get new things. From the famous 

 golden orange colored California poppy (Escholtzia) he has produced 

 a fixed new crimson form by selection alone. That is, noticing, some- 

 where, sometime, an Escholtzia individual varying slightly redder, he 

 promptly took possession of it, raised young poppies from its seeds, 



