74 LUTHER BURBANK 



may have been latent and unrevealed in one or 

 both parents. 



In the case of the sugar cane, propagation 

 by cuttings had been the universal custom 

 with the planters for no one knows how many 

 generations. 



As a result, a single cultivated variety of cane 

 that chanced to be in existence when the practice 

 of propagation by cutting was established con- 

 tinued unchanged as to its essential characteris- 

 tics, and there was no apparent opportunity for 

 any modification, except such minor ones as 

 might result from increased or diminished nutri- 

 tion due to the precise character of the soil and 

 climate. 



But the chance finding of the seedlings put the 

 plant on a new basis, and gave the planters new 

 varieties that enabled them to improve the cane, 

 and bring it more in line of competition with the 

 rival sugar producer that had only recently come 

 into notice, the sugar beet. 



At the time when the custom of propagating 

 cane by cuttings was established this plant stood 

 in a class quite by itself as a sugar producer. 



But within the past fifty years the merits of 

 the sugar beet have come to be understood. The 

 possibility of developing a beet with a high sugar 

 content has been established, and the beet sugar 



