LUTHER BURBANK 
ferent species. We have seen that sugar content 
is an all-important item in the case of the prune; 
and that sweetness and flavor and color are mat- 
ters of importance in the case of the cherry. We 
have also seen with what relative ease varieties 
may be developed that surpass their parent forms 
in these regards. 
An interesting illustration of the possibility of 
breeding new qualities into a fruit or accentuating 
old ones, to which reference has not hitherto been 
made, is manifested by one of my new cherries, 
which, through selective breeding, became so 
sweet that its sugar content acts as a preservative, 
quite as in the case of the sugar prune. 
These cherries, instead of decaying rapidly 
after ripening, dry on the tree in a state of perfect 
preservation. This particular feature is of no 
present commercial value, but the case illustrates 
the possibility of altering the inherent qualities 
of a fruit, and of doing this in the course of a 
few generations through systematic selection. 
The same thing is illustrated by another of my 
cherries which, by careful attention to a combina- 
tion of qualities that would ordinarily be quite 
overlooked, had its stem so strongly anchored to 
the stone that when the fruit is picked the flesh 
tears away leaving stem and stone on the tree. 
Now it will be recalled that, in the case of the 
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