ON HURRYING EVOLUTION 
In such a bonfire there would be 499 cherry 
grafts out of the five hundred which we have just 
made; there would be 19.999 rose bushes which 
had been brought to bearing in order to find the 
twenty thousandth which was not burned—or 
perhaps twenty thousand rose bushes, the one 
sought for not having been worth the saving; 
there would be 1,500 gladiolus bulbs with an easy 
market value of a dollar a piece, put in the fire 
after the one, or the two, or the dozen best among 
them had been selected; there would be a 
thousand cactus seedlings, representing three 
years of care and watchfulness, but useless now, 
their duty done. A ten thousand dollar bonfire, 
indeed, without exaggeration. 
The builder of bridges can sell the lumber used 
in his false construction for seconds; and so, 
too, could Mr. Burbank profitably dispose of the 
elements of false construction in his work—those 
millions of seeds and bulbs and cuttings which 
represent second bests or poorer; but he does 
not; every step in the process excepting those 
concerning the final result is obliterated with a 
ruthless hand. 
“It is better,” says Mr. Burbank, “to run the 
risk of losing a perfected product, through the 
destruction of the elements which went into it, 
than to issue forth to the world a lot of second 
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