TREES WITH AN EDUCATION 69 



has become such a wizard with all growing things? 

 It is because he has a wonderful psychic sympathy 

 which enables him to interpret their needs and de- 

 sires and so train and direct their activities that 

 they are able to accomplish in a few years what 

 would have consumed a thousand years of un- 

 tutored striving. Out of a hundred apple trees, 

 Burbank selects but one to carry on the destinies of 

 the race. An acre of berry bushes is burned to 

 give way to the offspring of one of their number. 

 Burbank is the greatest plant educator of the age. 



While some of his more extensive operations 

 have been in other fields, the California naturalist 

 has accomplished some marvellous things in tree 

 education. A number of years ago he produced the 

 fastest growing tree of the temperate zone. It 

 was a walnut and in thirteen years grew to a size 

 equal to that of the average twenty-eight year old 

 of its kind. At the same time he reduced the thick- 

 ness of the nut shells to that of paper. While this 

 was convenient for man, it was quite agreeable for 

 the birds also. They pecked through so many of 

 them that Burbank promptly bred a new tree with 

 thicker shells. The meat of these nuts was white 

 and all the bitter tannin was missing. 



It was Burbank who created the plumcot, a de- 

 licious new fruit, a combination of American and 



