LUTHER BURBANK 



periods of drought, since, unlike most other 

 fruits, the seeds will rarely germinate if fully 

 dried. 



As to all this we can only surmise. But we 

 may have full assurance that the thick, stone-like 

 seed-cover served a useful purpose, else it would 

 never have been developed and so persistently 

 preserved in all the divergent races of stone-fruits 

 that were evolved under the new conditions of 

 southwestern Asia and southern Europe to which 

 these fruits found their way. 



The roving tribes of Arabia developed a modi- 

 fied form of the fruit adapted for preservation by 

 drying, and now termed the apricot. Other 

 people consciously or unconsciously selected and 

 developed the almond; and yet others the juicy 

 and luscious peach; while the plum ran wild and 

 put forth a galaxy of hardy offspring that made 

 their way to the north of Europe and also, along 

 some now obliterated channels, to the Western 

 Hemisphere. 



But each and all of these descendants main- 

 tained, and some of them like the peach intensified 

 and elaborated, the unique characteristic of a 

 horn- or stone-like protective covering for the 

 seed. 



And so, it becomes matter for wonderment 

 that with all these uncounted generations of 



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