LUTHER BURBANK 
teristics but one. They were California poppies 
in habits, in growth, in shape, in size, in form, in 
grace, in texture, in beauty. 
Yet in color they differed from the California 
wild poppy almost as a violet differs from a daisy. 
One of these freaks developed into the solid 
crimson poppy, another into the pure white poppy, 
and still another into the fire-flame poppy—all 
shown here. 
The details of method employed and the 
application of these methods and the underlying 
principles to the improvement of other flowers, 
fruits, trees and useful and ornamental plants, will 
be left for later chapters. But as an illustration, 
this poppy experiment brings home three things: 
First, that Nature creates no duplicates. 
Second, that although each of Nature’s crea- 
tions has its own distinctive individuality, all the 
time she takes special precautions to fix, preserve, 
and make permanent the characteristics of each 
of her races or kinds. | 
Third, that there is always present in all of 
her creations the experimental tendency to break 
away from fixed characteristics—to start new 
races—to branch out into entirely new forms of 
development.. Through Mr. Burbank’s interven- 
tion, in the case of the poppy, this tendency was 
crowned with success; in ten thousand years, 
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