72 LUTHER BURBANK 



keeping quality and be guided in my selection 

 by a consideration of these traits in addition to 

 the others that had already been fairly fixed. 



Thus the matter of selection, even when many 

 qualities are to be combined in the ultimate 

 product, is not quite so hopelessly complex as the 

 calculations of the biometricians might lead one 

 to suppose. Yet it is assuredly complex enough 

 to test the patience and the ingenuity of any 

 experimenter to the last degree. 



So the amateur who enters this fascinating 

 field will do well to begin with simple cases, 

 paying heed to a single quality of any flower or 

 fruit with which he experiments; endeavoring to 

 advance along one line till he acquires skill 

 to attempt more complex experiments. 



Let him, for example, increase the perfume of 

 some familiar garden plant, or develop a race 

 having large blossoms, or one having peculiar 

 brilliancy of color. 



Any flower bed will show him, among 

 different specimens of the same species, enough 

 of variation to furnish material for his first selec- 

 tion. And he is almost sure to find encourage- 

 ment through discovery, among the plants grown 

 from this seed, of some that will show the par- 

 ticular quality he has in mind in a more pro- 

 nounced degree than did the parent plant. 



