LUTHER BURBANK 
We should see that the bees and butterflies and 
birds, with their help, and the caterpillars, locusts 
and deer in their efforts to destroy, have all served 
to aid the onward march. 
We should see all the while a steady change for 
the better—sturdier pear trees, brighter blossoms, 
more seed, better fruit. 
We should see that, with the aid of the elements, 
the pear tree adapted itself to exist, hardened 
itself to withstand many soils and many weathers. 
We should see that, with the unintended aid of 
its plant and animal enemies, it gained strength 
through overcoming them. 
We should see that, through the bees, it was 
helped into variation by mixing up heredities; 
and, by the birds, it was helped into still further 
variation by mixing up environments. 
Then, overshadowing all of these influences, 
there came into its life new influences of man— 
man savage and civilized, Oriental and Occidental 
—man with a liking for pears. 
Here in America, we who have grown pears 
have saved those which were the sweetest, the 
largest, the juiciest, the most luscious—because 
those were the ones we liked best. 
When we have bought pear trees to plant in our 
yards, we have chosen those which would give us 
the kind of fruit we prefer. 
[124] 
