LUTHER BURBANK 



type of abnormality resulting with which medical 

 men are familiar. 



So it seems plausible that a paucity of proper 

 food materials was the explanation of the origin 

 of the original Sans Noyau. 



It is in keeping with this explanation that the 

 Sans Noyau, is, as we have seen, a small scraggly 

 shrub, a mere dwarf as compared with the 

 average stature of trees of its family; and that 

 its fruit is reduced to the proportions of a small 

 berry, and is utterly lacking in those qualities of 

 sweetness and flavor that are the almost universal 

 characteristic of other stone-fruits. 



In a word, then, it is highly probable that the 

 plum that supplied the character of stonelessness, 

 upon which my experimental endeavors in the 

 production of a marketable stoneless plum was 

 founded, was a pathological product. 



I may add that many other "sports" or muta- 

 tions in the vegetable world that have furnished a 

 basis for the evolution of new races or species 

 may very probably have had the same origin. 

 Up-Hill Work 



This explanation of the origin of the Sans 

 Noyau makes it easier to understand the diflBculties 

 that attended the progress of this experiment. 



Had the little plum been absolutely stoneless — 

 so that no factor whatever bespeaking a stony fruit 



[120] 



