68 LUTHER BURBANK 



cian took some of them up and cultivated them, 

 and they were seen to develop into plants of 

 sugar cane, everyone except the physician him- 

 self was greatly surprised. 



For it had been supposed that the sugar cane 

 does not produce seed, and such a thing as a seed- 

 ling sugar cane was hitherto unheard of. 



The sugar cane belongs to that comparatively 

 small company of cultivated plants that have 

 almost totally given up the habit of seed produc- 

 tion. We have seen that the horse-radish is an- 

 other plant that has similarly stopped producing 

 seeds, and that the common potato has almost 

 abandoned the habit, as well as nearly all green- 

 house plants which have been reproduced by 

 cuttings or slips. Comment has been made, also, 

 on the rather extraordinary character of this 

 departure from the most sacred traditions of 

 plant life. 



That an organism, whose sole purpose beyond 

 the perpetuation of its own individual existence 

 might be said to be the production of seed, should 

 continue to grow and thrive and yet should 

 totally abandon the habit of seed production 

 seems altogether anomalous. 



The explanation is found, as we have seen, in 

 the fact that man provides means for the propa- 

 gation of horse-radish and sugar cane by division 



