94 LUTHER BURBANK 



These fast-growing descendants of the New 

 Zealand plant had not only the desirable quali- 

 ties of texture and flavor of leafstalk already 

 referred to, but they retained and advanced upon 

 the tendency of their ancestors to grow con- 

 stantly throughout the year. This anomalous 

 tendency, rather than the improvement in the 

 other qualities of the plant, is obviously the one 

 that requires explanation. Remarkable im- 

 provement in size and in other desired qualities, 

 through selection, is a more or less familiar 

 method of plant development. 



But the production of a race of pieplant that 

 departs radically from the most pronounced and 

 characteristic trait of the rhubarb family, namely 

 brief period of bearing, is something that re- 

 quires explanation. 



A clue to the explanation is found when we 

 recall that the plants were sent me from a region 

 lying on the other side of the equator. The 

 plants were exceptional even there in that they 

 had shown a tendency to bear that is to say to 

 produce small juicy leafstalks during the cold 

 season. Through some unexplained freak of 

 heredity or unheralded selective breeding they 

 had developed a character that had enabled them 

 to put forth their leaves much earlier than is 

 customary with all other races of rhubarb. 



