LUTHER BURBANK 
“The struggle of a plant to secure variation in 
its offspring does not end with the seed,” said Mr. 
Burbank. “It only begins there.” 
In the tropics, a common tree near the seashore 
is the coconut palm. The coconuts which we 
find in our market, their hard shells outermost, 
are but the inside portion of the nuts as they grew 
on these trees. 
When they were gathered, there was a fibrous 
substance surrounding the shell an inch or two 
in thickness—a woody fiber torn off by the 
shippers to cut down the cost of freight and 
cartage. Around this excelsior-like covering, as 
the nut grew on the tree, there was a skin-tight, 
waterproof cover, with a smooth or even shiny 
surface. 
At the top of the nut as it would stand if it 
floated in water, are three well defined eyes. 
Since these coconut palms grow, usually, along 
the water’s edge, the nuts often roll into a brook, 
or a river, or the ocean, and float away. 
Once detached from the tree and started on 
such a journey, the eyes disclose their purpose. 
Two of them begin to throw out a system of roots, 
not on the outside of the coconut, but growing at 
first within the woody fiber between the shell and 
the outside skin. 
[94] 
