LUTHER BURBANK 
Thus it chanced that in the season of 1908 I 
found among the cherries one that bore quite the 
largest fruit I have ever seen; fruit, moreover, of 
the most inviting color and having qualities of 
flesh to match. Cions from this new stock will 
be sent out and will in due course colonize many 
an orchard with a new variety of fruit that is sure 
to find great favor. 
But if I thus from time to time have pleasant 
surprises, I am also too often chagrined to find 
among my patrician cherries offspring that seem 
unworthy. But of course one hears of black sheep 
among the scions of even the noblest families, so 
it is not surprising that the blueblood cherries of 
Sebastopol offer no exception. 
And as the black member of any human family 
is always held up as a warning example, I have 
thought that I might in the same way make the 
black sheep of my cherry colony serve a useful 
purpose by explaining somewhat in detail the rea- 
son for their appearance. 
In so doing I shall be able, perhaps, to make a 
somewhat clearer exposition than has hitherto 
been attempted of certain aspects of heredity that 
are peculiarly important from the standpoint of 
the practical plant developer. 
Uprer CASE QUALITIES 
We have learned something in earlier chapters 
[72] 
