72 LUTHER BURBANK 



that result from such revival will be obvious if 

 we follow a little farther the story of the grass- 

 like seedlings that the physician transplanted 

 from the cane fields of Trinidad. 



It appears that one of these seedlings, grown to 

 maturity, was carried subsequently to the Hawai- 

 ian Islands, and there propagated in the usual 

 way, so that in due course sufficient plants were 

 grown from it to be tested as to their qualities of 

 growth and sugar production. And it was soon 

 discovered that this new seedling constituted vir- 

 tually a new race of sugar cane ; one that would 

 grow on land so poor that it had been allowed to 

 remain fallow. 



The new variety, indeed, would produce more 

 sugar on even the poorest land which had been 

 abandoned than the ordinary variety produces 

 on the best land. 



Being taught by this experience, the growers 

 of sugar cane paid heed to the seedlings in fields 

 where they appeared, and subsequently raised 

 from seed, and distributed in all countries new 

 varieties of sugar cane that have probably in- 

 creased the sugar production of the world bj 

 millions of tons each year. 



One could not ask a better object lesson in the 

 possibility of rejuvenating a static race of plants 

 through the growing of seedlings. 



