LUTHER BURBANK 
Wherever a finger touches the plum a mark is 
left, and since fruits, at best, must receive much 
handling from the orchard to the ultimate con- 
sumer, the plum is likely to lose its charm long 
before its real freshness or flavor has begun to 
depreciate. 
With the plumcots, however, the velvety bloom 
remains through growing, picking, sorting, ship- 
ping, handling and sale. Which means, of course, 
that the grower, the shipper, and the dealer receive 
a better profit, and the consumer pays the extra 
cost with cheerfulness, because appearance, after 
all, is nearly as valuable a point in a fruit as size, 
flavor or sweetness. 
This one, unplanned, unexpected improvement 
in the plumcot increases the earning capacity of 
the fruit by more than $100.00 per acre over what 
could be earned if plumcots had an evanescent 
bloom like their parent plums. 
Which is simply another evidence of the 
importance, in plant improvement (and else- 
where) of things which, at first, we are too apt to 
regard as trifles. 
It is the seeming trifles, after all, which appear 
to have the greatest effect on prices and profits. 
Of the two tins of asparagus shown here, one 
commands more than twice the retail price of the 
other, and brings considerably more than double 
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