LUTHER BURBANK 
naturally appeal are chiefly natives of Asia Minor, 
Palestine, and Persia, and while they might serve 
a useful purpose, if hybridized with races now 
growing in America, in giving a tendency to varia- 
bility and perhaps also an added virility, it is 
hardly to be expected that they bear hereditary 
factors that would greatly aid in the particular 
matter under consideration, because of the warm 
climate to which they and their ancestors have 
been habituated. 
Nevertheless, the experiment is well worth 
making for we know that there are latent quali- 
ties in the germ plasm of almost every race of 
plants that are revealed only through hybridiza- 
tion, and the presence of which would otherwise 
be quite unsuspected. 
In any event there are differences to be ob- 
served between individual apricot trees as to the 
relative hardiness of their blossoms. So material 
is at hand, with or without hybridization, from 
which to begin the work of selection. 
Doubtless this work might be carried forward 
much more rapidly if we had a clearer knowledge 
as to what the precise anatomical conditions are 
that are associated with extreme sensitiveness of 
the blossoms. 
We know that some blossoms (those of certain 
Japanese plums, for example) may retain their 
[250] 
