252 GARDENING WITH BRAINS *? 



will do well," Burbank counsels, "to begin with 

 simple cases, paying heed to a single quality of 

 any flower or fruit with which he experiments; 

 endeavoring to advance along one line till he 

 gains skill enough through practice to attempt 

 more complex experiments. 



"Let him, for example, increase the perfume 

 of some familiar garden plant or develop a race 

 having large blossoms or one having peculiar 

 brilliancy of color." One does not need to be 

 rich to enjoy this kind of fun. An ordinary 

 garden suffices. 



"Any flower bed will show him," Burbank 

 continues, "among different specimens of the 

 same species, enough of variation to furnish 

 material for his first selection. And he is almost 

 sure to find encouragement through discovery, 

 among the plants grown from this seed, of some 

 that will show the particular quality he has in 

 mind in a more pronounced degree than did the 

 parent plant. 



"So here he will have material for further 

 selection, and step by step he can progress in 

 successive seasons, often more rapidly than he 

 had dared to hope, toward the production of the 

 new variety at which he aims." 



Here is another interesting hint. You can 

 enjoy the pleasures of supergardening by putting 

 alluring paint on pears. Hear the master: 

 "Unlike most other fruits, this one, as everyone 

 knows, is for the most part lacking in the 



