284 LUTHER BURBANK 



facts and conditions that there is little incen- 

 tive, aside from general interest or wandering 

 curiosity, to try to lift the veil which obscures 

 our past or to peer through the fog which 

 keeps us from seeing what to-morrow has in 

 store. 



In plant growing, more than in any of the 

 world's other industries, does the scheme of evo- 

 lution and a working knowledge of nature's 

 methods cease to be a theory of far-away im- 

 portance and of no immediate interest and be- 

 come an actual working factor, a necessary tool, 

 without which it is impossible to do the day's 

 work. 



Whether plant improvement be taken up as a 

 science, as a profession, or as a business or 

 whether it be considered merely a thing of 

 general interest, an idle hour recreation there 

 is ever present the need to understand nature's 

 methods and her forces in order to be able to 

 make use of them to guide them there always 

 stares us in the face that solitary question: 



" Where and how did life start?" 



We have seen in these books color photo- 

 graphs of corn as it may have grown four thou- 

 sand years ago, perhaps. 



It took less than twelve seasons to carry this 

 plant backward some thousands of years. 



