EDITORIAL AND GENERAL 



219 



there are not many of the rest of us who 

 will be found tit to enter. 



* * * * * * * 



— The Scientific Aspects of Luther Bur- 

 bank's Work. 



"I love sunshine, the blue sky, trees, 

 flowers, mountains, green meadows, 

 sunny brooks, the ocean .... but child- 

 ren above them all." — Burbank. 



"A Genuine Contributor to Scientific 

 Knowledge." 



BY PROFESSOR VERNON LYMAN KELLOGG, 

 LEI. AND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVER- 

 SITY, CALIFORNIA. 



Luther Burbank has an advantage of 

 true scientific character over his fellow 

 workers, and in it he makes a genuine 

 contribution to scientific knowledge of 

 plant biology, albeit this knowledge is 

 so far only proved to be attainable and 

 to exist. It is not yet exposed in its de- 

 tails and may never be, however unsel- 

 fish be the owner of it. For the going 

 to oblivion of scientific data of an ex- 

 tent and value equivalent, I may esti- 

 mate roughly, to those now issuing from 

 any half dozen experimental laboratories 

 of variation and heredity, is the crying 

 regret of all evolution students acquaint- 

 ed with the situation. The recently 

 assumed relations of Air. Burbank to 



the Carnegie Institution are our present 

 chief hope for at least a lessening of 

 this loss. 

 ******* 



Let us, in a paragraph, simply sum up 

 the essential things in the scientific 

 aspects of Burbank's work. No new 

 revelations to science of an overturning 

 character ; but the revelation of the pos- 

 sibilities of accomplishment, based on 

 genera] principles already known by an 

 unusual man. No new laws of evolu- 

 tion, but new facts, new data, new 

 canons for special cases. No new prin- 

 ciple or process to substitute for selec- 

 tion, but a new proof of the possibilities 

 of the effectiveness of the old principle. 

 No new categories of variations, but an 

 illuminating demonstration of the pos- 

 sibilities of stimulating variability and 

 of the reality of this general variability 

 as the fundamental transforming factor. 

 No new evidence either to help the Dar- 

 winian factors to their death-bed, or to 

 strengthen their lease on life; for the 

 "man" factor in all the selecting phe- 

 nomena in Burbank's gardens excludes 

 all "natural" factors. Here are some of 

 Burbank's own words, touching these 

 matters that scientific men are particu- 

 larly interested in, in his work : 



"All scientists have found that pre- 

 conceived notions, dogmas, and all per- 

 sonal prejudice must be set aside, lis— 



THE BURBANK SCHOOL, SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA. 



