288 LUTHER BURBANK 



And then, finally, suppose that some one 

 should come along and decry the fruit, not be- 

 cause of its lack of merit, but because the parent 

 plants from which the hybrids grew belonged to 

 a family of poisonous plants. 



Suppose the hue and cry thus raised should be 

 given an element of plausibility by the fact that 

 some unscrupulous person had sold to gardeners 

 a plant of a different species from either of the 

 parents of your hybrid, yet of an allied race, 

 and had claimed that this plant, which bears a 

 fruit of doubtful edibility, is identical with the 

 one you had introduced. 



Suppose all this, I say, and then try to 

 imagine just what would be your attitude of 

 mind toward the work you had accomplished on 

 one hand, and the persons who not always for 

 the best motives or without prejudice were its 

 traducers. 



THE SUNBERRY AND ITS CRITICS 



In suggesting this I am only asking you to 

 put yourself in my place and imagine what must 

 be my natural attitude of mind toward one of 

 the most celebrated, and without doubt the most 

 berated, of all my plant productions the fruit 

 which I named the Sunberry, and which the 

 dealer to whom I sold it rechristened without 



