Winter Meeting. 309 



for the European parent to transmit all of its good qualities to the off- 

 spring, especially since the Chinese sand pear was a fixed type, while 

 the European was more or less of an inconstant type due to high cul- 

 tivation for many centuries. But why not cross Kieffer with the best 

 of the European, thus making the offspring three-fourths European and 

 one-fourth Asiatic? Who can tell us what the result would be in ten 

 thousand seedlings of such parentage? 



IN CONCLUSION. 



My horticultural philosophy might be condensed into three words : 

 Exploration, Importation, Amelioration. In exploration we hunt in our 

 native prairies and thickets for promising native fruits, thus taking ad- 

 vantage of Nature's work of thousands of years in adapting fruits 10 

 our climate. By importation we secure from other countries anything 

 of promise, realizing the fact that nature has not given all the plants 

 worthy of cultivation to any one country, and that in the older civiliza- 

 tions much has been done through the centuries in the way of develop- 

 ing plants. By amelioration this native and imported material is taken 

 in hand and still further developed by cultivation and selection, with 

 crossing as the most potent means of compelling variations to appear. 



We have depended altogether too much upon chance seedlings. 

 From time to time Nature has smiled upon us and we have been con- 

 tent with her bounty. But now we are penetrating deeper into the 

 mysteries of plant life. Very recently DeVries of Holland taught us, 

 as the result of a score of years of careful experimenting, that evolution 

 comes by miutations — that is, by sudden leaps or saltations, instead of 

 by slow, almost imperceptible changes. I have expressed this thought 

 by saying that evolution is a kangaroo and not a snail. Now, that we 

 know that an absolutely new seedling plant may come suddenly, as Mi- 

 nerva sprang full-fledged from the head of Jove, we can work with 

 greater zeal, knowing full well that any desired seedling will surely 

 appear to revv'ard our efforts. 



"Excess of food causes variation." This old principle, laid down in 

 these words b\- Darwin, means that if a plant is freed from the fight for 

 life by giving it good care and abundant food, the life force that is 

 thus saved must go somewhere. In flowers, this change oftens tends to 

 doubling; in fruits, to larger and choicer fruit. While visiting Luther 

 Burbank at Santa Rosa, California, last August, I saw this plan of giv- 

 ing excess of food carried to perfection. The seeds were sown in flats 

 and transplanted singly to beds of earth in the garden, manured as much 

 as the plants would stand, with various commercial fertilizers. Such. 



