256 LUTHER BURBANK 



make environment do by spreading before us 

 more combinations of heredity we accomplish 

 in two years what otherwise might take two life- 

 times. 



We see that the science of plant life is not yet 

 an exact science, like mathematics, in which two 

 and two always equals four. It is not a science 

 in which the definite answers to specific problems 

 can be found in any book. 



It is a science which involves endless experi- 

 menting endless seeking after better and better 

 results. 



Theories are good, because if we do not per- 

 mit them to mislead us, they may save us time; 

 laws, and maps, and charts, and diagrams sys- 

 tems of classification and of nomenclature all 

 these are good, because, if they are faulty, they 

 still reveal to us the viewpoint of some one who, 

 with diligence, has devoted himself to a single 

 phase, at least, of a complex subject. 



But we must remember that the theories, most 

 of them, are built around dead plants. 



While the facts we are to use are to be gath- 

 ered from living ones. 



So, every once in a while, when we come to a 

 crossroads where that kind of theory and this 

 kind of fact seem to part, let us stick to the thing 

 which the living plant tells us, and assume that 



