No Two LivinGc THINGS 
EXACTLY ALIKE 
INFINITE INGENUITY 
THE PRICE OF VARIATION 
HERE do the flowers get their colors?” 
asked a visitor of Mr. Burbank one 
day. 
“From the bees, and the butterflies, and the 
birds,” was the reply. “And from us.” 
* * * * * 
Let us pick up a geranium, such as might be 
found in any dooryard in America, and see what 
Mr. Burbank meant. 
If we were to strip off its five brilliant petals 
soon after they have opened, and slice the base of 
the blossom in half, we should find ourselves 
looking into a tiny nest of geranium eggs—round, 
white, moist, mushy eggs with a soft skinny 
covering for shells. 
Carefully packed in a pulpy formation, these 
eggs, we should observe, are incased in a well 
protected nest, longer than its breadth, oval, except 
[ VoLUME I—Cnapter III] 
