342 LUTHER BURBANK 



A paintbrush and a pot of paint never made an 

 artist unless there was something more than 

 theory for a guide. Extensive plant breeding 

 requires for its success a very broad and exten- 

 sive knowledge of botany, biology, evolution, 

 physiology, chemistry, paleontology, and of the 

 whole life history of the earth and its plants, a 

 good knowledge of heredity, environment, varia- 

 tion, adaptation, germination, inheritance, ex- 

 pression, adjustment, elimination, and of hardi- 

 ness, plant diseases and how to eliminate them, 

 insects and how to overcome them, of soils, of the 

 practical changes to be made and how to attain 

 them, with a knowledge of foods, flavors, fra- 

 grance, colors ; the requirements of markets, ship- 

 pers, dealers, and consumers; in fact, a broad arid 

 comprehensive general knowledge of the work of 

 those who have gone before, and a technique in 

 the work which can never be acquired except by 

 most constant and careful study of the living, 

 growing plants themselves, and a fund of pa- 

 tience with this most enticing game with nature 

 which knows no end. 



The case of the white blackberry with which 

 we are at the moment concerned, is a very good 

 illustration in point. 



My experiments in the development of that 

 berry might be interpreted in the older terminol- 



