ON THE POSSIBILITIES 
And fourth, transforming wild plants and 
making entirely new ones to take care of new 
wants which are growing with surprising rapidity. 
The cost and quality of everything that we eat 
and wear depend on this work of plant improve- 
ment. 
The beefsteak for which we are paying an 
ever-increasing price represents, after all, so 
many blades of grass or, perhaps, so many slabs of 
cactus; while the potatoes, the lettuce and the 
coffee which go with it come out of the ground 
direct. 
Our shirts are from cotton or flax, or from the 
mulberry tree on which the silkworm feeds. 
Our shoes, like our steaks, resolve themselves 
into grass; while our woolen coats represent the 
grass which the sheep found after the cows got 
through. 
The mineral kingdom supplies the least of our 
needs; and the animal kingdom feeds on, and 
depends on, the vegetable kingdom, after all. 
* * * * * 
“Who can predict the result,” asks Mr. Bur- 
bank, “when the inventive genius of young 
America is turned toward this, the greatest of all 
fields of invention, as it is now turned toward 
mechanics and electricity?” 
[273] 
