LUTHER BURBANK 
between the foliage or stem or buds of the seedling 
and the qualities of its future fruit as regards the 
matter of size. 
So it may quite conceivably happen that the 
experimenter, using his best endeavors to make 
right selection, picks out for preservation, among 
the ten or twelve chosen out of the thousands, in- 
dividuals that (though they have only large-fruited 
ancestors in the two generations back of them), 
yet themselves are pure recessives (bb) as regards 
that quality, bearing no factor of large fruit what- 
ever. 
And in that event the experimenter will be con- 
fronted, after another two-year or three-year in- 
terval of waiting, with an array of fruit, borne on 
the branches of his long-nurtured and carefully 
selected cions, not a single specimen of which is 
other than insignificant in size. 
Other good qualities the fruit may have. But 
in the essential quality that we are keeping under 
consideration it is utterly lacking. In the matter 
of size it reverts to the recessive member of its 
great-grandparental ancestry. And so its telltale 
progeny, hanging there among the luscious fruits 
of surrounding branches (of other lineage), are 
like the black sheep in a patrician family. 
Not an enheartening experiment, thus far, for 
the would-be developer of a colossal cherry. 
[86] 
