LUTHER BURBANK 
That there are about four hundred families in 
my patrician cherry colony is a matter of acci- 
dent, quite uninfluenced by any thought of imita- 
tion. It chances that year by year the process of 
elimination about balances the process of addition 
to the family, and the census of the colony is not 
greatly altered. 
Reference has been made in various earlier 
chapters to the origin and development of the 
patrician cherries. They are closely related as 
to their remote ancestry, as I suppose is the case 
with the members of every other aristocracy. Yet, 
as we have seen, the ancestral traits are variously 
blended in the different families, and there is 
notable diversity among them as to individual 
traits. Some of them bear fruit that is vividly 
red in color, others fruit that is pallid; and there 
are corresponding divergences as to flavor, free- 
dom of stone, sugar content, and all the rest of 
the complex characteristics of a well-bred cherry. 
Of course these qualities are variously re- 
combined in the progeny of each new generation. 
So I can never tell what surprise is in store for me 
when I raise seedlings from the fruit. 
And there are always new additions to the 
colony that will only come into bearing next sea- 
son or the season after and reveal whai they hold 
in store. 
[70] 
