LUTHER BURBANK 
improvements in plant life have been wrought in 
the railroad era—using the railroad, figuratively, 
to represent all of the invention, wealth and 
progress which have accompanied it. 
There are, after all, but one hundred and forty 
generations between us and Adam, if the popular 
notions of elapsed time are correct—but one 
hundred and forty father-to-son steps between 
the Garden of Eden and now—but one hundred 
and forty lifetimes, all told, in which whatever 
progress we have made has been accomplished. 
Yet our plants go back, who knows how many 
tens of thousands of generations? 
It took the plum tree all of these uncounted 
ages, in which it had only wild environment, to 
produce the poor little fruit which we find growing 
in the woods. 
It took only two or three short centuries of 
care and half-hearted selection to bring about the 
improvement which is evidenced in the common 
backyard plum. 
And it took less than a generation, after the 
railroads came, to work all of the real wonders 
which we see in this fruit today. 
The last two generations of the human race, 
in fact, have accomplished more toward real 
progress—have done more to make transportation 
and quick communication possible—have gone 
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