120 LUTHER BURBANK 



specialization is so great that there is small pros- 

 pect of securing a useful form by bringing them 

 together. 



Such a development is not impossible, however, 

 but it would certainly be difficult to fix the new 

 type after it had been produced. 



My own experience with the cabbage tribe was 

 chiefly gained in the early days of my experi- 

 mental work, half a century ago, when I found 

 that it was easy to cross the cabbage with the 

 cauliflower and with other members of the tribe ; 

 that, in fact, it is necessary to grow them quite 

 a distance apart in order to keep the seeds pure. 

 But the hybrids produced were all what we were 

 accustomed then to describe as mongrels. Some 

 of them had small cauliflowerlike heads of in- 

 ferior quality. 



At the time when these experiments were 

 made I did not fully understand the impor- 

 tance of the second generation, and have never 

 found time to take this line of experiment 

 up again. 



I had good success then, however, in crossing 

 the purple-leaved cabbage with other varieties of 

 cabbage, developing thus a purple cabbage with 

 a very large head. Though larger, they were 

 somewhat less dark in color than the parent 

 stock. 



