LUTHER BURBANK 
bests which have within them the power of self 
perpetuation and multiplication, and which, if we 
do not destroy them now, will clutter the earth 
with inferiority or with mediocrity.” 
So, we see that, while nature eventually would 
produce the things which we hurry her to produce, 
yet the improvements would find themselves in 
competition with the failures which they cost, the 
failures outnumbering the improvements, perhaps, 
a million to one. We see that we not only shorten 
the process, not only achieve a result out of every 
forty failures instead of every million, but we give 
our product the advantage of a better chance to 
live—we remove from it the necessity of fighting 
its inferiors for the food, and air, and sunlight 
which give it life. 
This, then, is the story of the making of a new 
cherry to fit an ideal: 
First, selection of the elements; second, com- 
bining these elements; third, bringing these com- 
binations to quick bearing; fourth, selecting one 
out of the five hundred; and then, selection, on 
and on. 
Interesting and wonderful as the process of 
pollenation is, ingenious and successful as Mr. 
Burbank’s method of grafting is, important and 
highly perfected as his methods of growing and 
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