50 LUTHER BURBANK 



Luther Burbank has learned to appreciate all this, for 

 he says: "What occupation could be more delightful than 

 adopting the most promising individual from among a 

 race of neglected orphan weeds, downtrodden and de- 

 spised by all, and lifting it up by breeding and education 

 to a higher place? To see it gradually change its sprawl- 

 ing habits, its coarse, ill-smelling foliage, its insignificant 

 blossoms of a dull color, to an upright plant with hand- 

 some, glossy, fragrant leaves, and blossoms of every hue, 

 and with a fragrance as pure and lasting as could be de- 

 sired?" 



Try to put yourself in the place of a plant. Perhaps 

 it is wild and would be made tame; or it has an unpleas- 

 ant odor and desires a sweet fragrance. It may have an 

 unattractive flower which it wishes bright and beautiful. 



FIf a fruit, it is sour and may wish to be made sweet. It 

 might be a berry full of hard seeds that hurt its feelings 

 and it would like them removed; or a nut that would be 

 useful but for its puckery bitterness. Burbank has changed 

 all of these things, and many more. He says: "I have no 

 magic or secrets to impart. I simply learn and follow 

 Nature's laws." 



New plants are produced by selecting or choosing, year 



after year, the one plant among many of its kind which 



has an especial quality that you desire, and saving the 



seeds from this one plant only, instead of planting seeds 



from every one. In this way by selection alone you can 



