LUTHER BURBANK 



eration after generation the same influences from 

 the soil and atmosphere, the stamp of these 

 influences on its organic structure becomes more 

 and more fixed and the hereditarj^ influence 

 through which these conditions are transmitted 

 to its descendants becomes more and more 

 notable and pronounced. 



So it is that a plant that has lived for countless 

 generations in Japan has acquired a profound 

 heredity tending to transmit a particular set of 

 qualities; and when we hybridize that plant 

 with another plant that has similarly gained its 

 hereditarj'^ tendencies through age-long residence 

 in Europe, we bring together two conflicting 

 streams that must fight against each other and 

 strangely disturb the otherwise equable current 

 of hereditary transmission. 



Long experience with the hybrids of other 

 species of plants had taught me this, and hence 

 it was that I expected to bring about a notable 

 upheaval in the hereditary traits of my daisies by 

 bringing the pollen of a Japanese plant to the 

 stigmas of my hybrid European and American 

 ox-eyes. That my expectations were realized, and 

 more than realized, is matter of record of which 

 the present Shasta Daisy gives tangible proof. 



We shall see the same thing illustrated over 

 and over again in our subsequent studies. 



[26] 



