306 LUTHER BURBANK 



rather coarse plant, with objectionable leafy 

 stalk, and a flower so small and inconspicuous 

 that it would attract little attention and would 

 scarcely be regarded by anyone as a desirable 

 acquisition for the garden. But the flower had 

 one quality that appealed to me it was pure 

 white. 



Needless to say, no time was lost, once these 

 plants were in bloom, in crossing the best of the 

 hybrid daisies with pollen from the flowers of 

 their Japanese cousin. 



The first results were not wholly reassuring. 

 But in a subsequent season, among innumerable 

 seedlings from this union, one was found at last 

 with flowers as beautifully white as those of the 

 Japanese, and larger than the largest of those 

 that the hybrid plants had hitherto produced. 

 Moreover the plant on which this flower grew 

 revealed the gracefulness of the American plant, 

 and in due course was shown to have the hardy 

 vigor of all the other species. 



From this remarkable plant, with its combined 

 heritage of four ancestral strains from three 

 continents, thousands of seedlings were raised 

 each year for the five or six ensuing seasons, the 

 best individuals being selected and the others 

 destroyed according to my custom, until at last 

 the really wonderful flower that has since become 



