LUTHER BURBANK 
without giving a moment of consideration to the 
atom-structure of the iron which he works—with 
never a thought of the forces which Nature has 
employed in creating the substance we call iron 
ore. 
It is conceivable that one might become a good 
cook—a master chef, even—without the slightest 
reference to, or knowledge of, the structural 
formation of animal cells and vegetable cells. 
Or that one might succeed as a teacher of 
the young—might become, even, a nation-wide 
authority on molding the plastic mind of youth— 
without ever being assailed by the thought that 
the forbears of the nimble-minded children in his 
care, ages and ages ago, may have been swinging 
from tree to tree by their tails. 
And so, in most occupations, it has been 
contrived for us that we deal only with present- 
day facts and conditions—that there is little 
incentive, aside from general interest or wandering 
curiosity, to try to lift the veil which obscures our 
past—or to peer through the fog which keeps us 
from seeing what tomorrow has in store. 
In plant growing, more than in any of the 
world’s other industries, does the scheme of 
evolution and a working knowledge of Nature’s 
methods cease to be a theory — of far-away 
importance and of no immediate interest—and 
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