LUTHER BURBANK 
“Right here on this experiment farm,” spoke 
up Mr. Burbank, “you might find hundreds of 
evidences of heredity more striking than that— 
more striking because they are the evidences of 
heredity in plant life, instead of in animal life. 
“Right here,” said he, “you will find plants 
which show tendencies unquestionably inherited 
from a line of ancestry going back perhaps ten 
thousand years or more—tendencies, some of 
them, which now seem strangely out of place 
because the conditions which gave rise to them 
in their ancestors no longer exist; tendencies like 
those of the cactus and the blackberry to protect 
themselves from wild beasts when wild beasts are 
no longer enemies; tendencies to deck themselves 
in colors designed to attract the insects of a 
forgotten age—insects which, perhaps, no man has 
ever seen. 
“Where some incredulity might be expressed 
as to whether the bear had not actually been taught 
to fish for salmon, or seen another bear perform 
the act, there can be no such question in the case 
of heredity in plants. 
“Here,” said he, as a bed of sweet peas was 
approached, “is a plant which has inherited the 
climbing, twining tendency. 
“That is an evidence that, at some time 
back in its history, this plant has probably been 
[40] 
