LUTHER BURBANK 
Here, in America, we like fruits that are soft, 
large, sweet, luscious, juicy, aromatic, easy to 
digest when eaten raw. Our pears grow that way. 
In Japan and China they like fruits which are 
hard, small, bitter, dry, acid—suitable only for 
pickling, preserving, or cooking. The Chinese and 
Japanese pear trees bear that kind of fruit. 
Neither the Japanese pear, nor our American 
type, is like the original wild parent which was 
first discovered near the middle of Russia. 
Each has changed —one toward one set of 
ideals—and the other toward another set. 
If we could lay bare before us the whole history 
of the pear tree—if we could picture in our minds 
its stages of progress beginning back in the times, 
say, when instead of a fruit it bore only a seed 
pod like the geranium’s—we should see a record 
of endless change, constant adaptation. 
We should see that the soil, and the moisture, 
and the sunshine, and the air, throughout the ages, 
have played their parts in working the pear tree 
forward. 
We should see that other plants, crowding it 
for room, or sapping the moisture from its feet, 
or adding richness to the soil by their decaying 
leaves and limbs, have done their share in hasten- 
ing its improvement. 
(122) 
