266 LUTHER BURBAISTK 



ent zone of productivity, by merely noting the 

 exceptional individuals that produce fruit in the 

 season when their fellows are rendered infertile 

 by the frost or other causes. 



Seedlings grown from these relatively hardy 

 plants would, on the average, tend to manifest 

 exceptional hardiness ; and by successive selection 

 through many generations it would thus be pos- 

 sible, without any question, to modify the sensi- 

 tiveness of the apricot in such a way as to adapt 

 it for cultivation far beyond the limits of its 

 present range. 



Of course such selective breeding would be 

 subject to the usual difficulties and complications 

 that attend the development of any new or ex- 

 ceptional quality in any orchard fruit. 



Here, as elsewhere, there are complications 

 due to the fact that the fruit will not grow true 

 to type from seed. In this regard, however, the 

 case of the apricot is somewhat more favorable 

 than that of most other orchard fruits, because 

 this species has been less widely cultivated, and is 

 therefore less complex as to its hereditary tend- 

 encies than most others. 



Moreover, it is fairly easy in the case of the 

 apricot to predict the qualities of the fruit from 

 observation of the very young seedlings. In 

 general the buds and leaves and wood in the first 



