LUTHER BURBANK 
round themselves, just as surely as they change 
ambitions, mold religions, create dress styles, 
just so surely do they influence and change the 
characteristics of the plants in whose environment 
they live. 
“When I say that man is the biggest element 
in the environment of plants,” said Mr. Burbank, 
“I do not mean those few men who have devoted 
their lives to the improvement of plants. I do not 
mean the botanist, the horticulturist, the florist, 
the nurseryman, the agricultural experimentalist. 
I mean man in the mass—man busy with his dry 
goods store, or his steel company, occupied with 
his law, or his medicine, tired out from his daily 
blacksmithing, or his carpentering. I mean just 
man, the neighbor of plants, whether he be their 
friend or their enemy—whoever and whatever he 
ag 
It was the savage Indian who gave us, here in 
America, the most important crop we have. 
It was the Indian who found a wild grass 
covering the plains and developed it into corn. 
Or, to turn it the other way around, it was the 
desire of the Indian for a food plant like this that 
led the teosinte grass, by gradual adaptation, to 
produce Indian corn or maize. 
(126) 
