LUTHER BURBANK 
bears only for a relatively short term of years— 
often only ten or fifteen at most—the vast eco- 
nomic importance of this possible improvement 
will be quite obvious. 
A STONELESS PEACH? 
As to the fruit itself, there is one opportunity 
for improvement that is particularly inviting—the 
possibility of producing a stoneless peach. 
The desirability of such a development, from 
the standpoint of the peach consumer, requires 
no demonstration. From the standpoint of the 
tree itself, a reduction in the stone would be 
highly important. It costs a peach tree to produce 
a pound of stones probably as much as to produce 
many pounds of pulp. 
The drain on the vitality of the tree in pro- 
ducing the stone that it no longer needs must take 
from it in some measure the capacity for produc- 
tion of fruit pulp that it might otherwise have. 
The hybridizing experiments with the almond 
have influenced the stone of the fruit in a sug- 
gestive way. Some of my hybrid peaches have a 
kernel that is almost as sweet and edible as the 
kernel of the almond. As yet I have not secured 
a peach having really good quality of flesh com- 
bined with the edible seed. But that this combi- 
nation might be effected, if one were to select for 
it, admits of no question. 
[168] 
