LUTHER BURBANK 
“If we want to take advantage of a climbing 
tendency in a plant or an animal, let us by all 
means find a plant or an animal in whose heredity 
that climbing tendency is a part. Let us not try 
to teach monkeys to bark, or dogs to swing from 
the limbs of trees by their tails; let us not try to 
make corn climb the hop pole, or to transform 
hops into shade trees. 
“Maybe these things could be done. In fact, 
with unlimited time, there is no question that 
they could be done. But with plenty of plants 
about us with ready-made heredities of which we 
can avail ourselves in a single season; it would be 
folly to try to accomplish the same result in a 
harder way, well knowing that only the twentieth 
or thirtieth generation ahead of us could see the 
results of our work. 
“In our search for heredities we shall find 
many plants which are scarcely worth working 
with—plants whose environments have not led 
into heredities which are desirable for our ends. 
“But at the same time we shall find scores and 
scores of plants in the least expected places— 
plants like the cactus, which, at first, seem impos- 
sible of use—which with a littke encouragement 
yield us rare heredities for our work.” 
* x * * * 
When the masons, and carpenters, and deco- 
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