LUTHER BURBANK 
caring for seedlings are—these, after all, are but 
details in the process—minor details, in fact. 
The big element, over-towering them in im- 
portance, is selection. 
First, the selection of an ideal, then the 
selection of the elements which are to be blended 
to achieve it, then the selection of the resultant 
plant, and after that the selection of better and 
better individual plants to bear the fruit which 
reproduces the original selected ideal. 
Everything we do, then, is simply done to 
facilitate selection. 
We produce new plants in enormous quan- 
tities, in order that there may be many from which 
to select; and having selected, we destroy nine 
hundred and ninety-nine one thousandths of our 
work. 
We strive all the while to produce quick 
results—to eliminate the long waits and to shorten 
those that we can not wholly eliminate—simply so 
that our selection may be truly comparative—as 
that of five hundred fruits tasted in a single after- 
noon, and so that lingering expectancy may not 
prejudice our judgment, or the result. 
It took two thousand years to bring about the 
juicy American pear by unconscious selection— 
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