LUTHER BURBANK 
Fortunately, however, there are possibilities of 
wider hybridizations that give far greater promise. 
There are varieties of Japanese plums that will 
stand hard freezing every morning from the time 
the buds start until the fruit is of good size. With 
ordinary plums such freezing absolutely prohibits 
the development of fruit, and the apricot, of 
course, cannot withstand even a single light frost. 
The resistant quality of the Japanese plum, 
then, marks it as a plant having in pre-eminent 
measure the precise quality that the apricot most 
conspicuously lacks. 
So the question at once arises as to whether it 
may not be possible to hybridize the apricot and 
the Japanese plum and by so doing breed into the 
apricot strain the quality of hardiness, just as we 
have seen specific qualities bred into other plants 
by similar hybridization. 
Fortunately it is possible to make such a cross. 
Reference has already been made to the new fruit 
called the Plumcot that I produced a good many 
years ago by making use of this particular com- 
bination. A full account of the methods involved 
and the difficulties overcome in producing this 
very unusual hybrid will be given in a subsequent 
chapter. 
It will then appear that the plumcot is to all 
intents and purposes a new species of fruit. 
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