LUTHER BURBANK 
The seed of a plant of a valid wild variety 
(sub-species), or the seed of a hundred plants of 
that variety intermixed, will produce a generation 
of offspring which, though they number thousands 
or millions, all bear striking resemblance in their 
essential qualities of shape and leaf and flower 
and fruit to the parents from which they sprang 
and to one another. 
This is the fundamental difference. 
It is a difference that should be borne con- 
stantly in mind when we use the convenient word 
“variety” in connection with an orchard fruit. 
Perhaps it is unfortunate that the word has been 
applied with this double meaning; but it is ob- 
viously convenient, and if properly interpreted 
it may be used without danger of confusion of 
ideas. 
From GERM CELLS To APPLES 
That the potentialities of numberless new va- 
rieties lie hidden in the pollen grains and ovules 
of a single flower-cluster is a thought that makes 
strange appeal to the imagination of the intelli- 
gent plant developer. 
When he pollenizes a flower he is bringing to- 
gether two germinal microcosms each of which, 
rightly viewed, is a universe within itself. 
He is dealing with individual life histories and 
with the histories of races. 
[186] 
