NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



in all his grafting tests was that of a union of 

 two plums, one brought over from France, 

 there being no other plum like it in the new 

 world, the other the Kelsey plum, well known 

 in western America. The graft was attached 

 to the parent tree, the Kelsey, in the usual 

 way, but, when blooming time came, the graft, 

 though growing heartily, put forth no blos- 

 soms. It did, however, a still stranger thing 

 than this, one of the strangest in all plant 

 history, it changed the entire life of the par- 

 ent, a thing hinted at by Darwin as being in 

 the list of possibilities but never known before. 

 The tree, by some strange influence born of 

 the grafting, completely changed its own life, 

 or, at least, so changed it that its own seeds 

 in turn developed the French plum. It thus 

 formed in the tree itself a cross between two 

 trees that had never been crossed before, the 

 life of the one entering into and transforming 

 the life of the other. 



Mr. Burbank heartily recommends the work 

 of grafting from seedlings to all amateurs, 

 whether their grounds are small or large. He 

 says that such immediate results need not be 

 looked for as in the breeding of flowers, be- 



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