96 LUTHER BURBANK 



THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 



But meantime this plant, like every other 

 living organism, was of course subject to the 

 directly stimulative influence of its environment. 

 Its hereditary traditions had developed what we 

 may speak of as an instinctive tendency to grow 

 at a given time of year regardless of climatic 

 conditions ; but they had also given it an equally 

 powerful tendency to respond to the stimulus of 

 cold weather, and to become productive not 

 merely in the season of winter but under the 

 climatic conditions of winter. 



In other words, the combined influences of 

 heredity and of immediate environment were 

 here as always influential in determining the con- 

 ditions of plant growth. 



But, whereas in New Zealand the environment 

 of winter characterized by cold temperature 

 coincided with the calendar months of June, 

 July, and August, in the new environment of 

 California the conditions of winter were shifted 

 to the calendar months of December, January, 

 and February. So the two instincts, one calling 

 for productivity in June, July, and August, and 

 the other for productivity during cold weather, 

 were now no longer coincident, but made them- 

 selves manifest at widely separated seasons, thus 



