374 LUTHER BURBANK 



They are in large proportion confessedly 

 inferior representatives of their races. 



There is much evidence to show that they 

 even include large numbers of defectives, who, 

 owing to their alien tongues and habits, can with 

 great difficulty be properly adjudged by the 

 immigrant officials and denied admission in 

 accordance with the laws that are intended to 

 prevent the coming of the notoriously unfit. 



THE GREATEST MIGRATION IN HISTORY 



But even if it were supposed that a large 

 majority of newcomers are real representatives 

 of the best of their alien racial strains, their 

 coming in such numbers would still make them 

 objects of solicitude to the student of heredity. 



The American race of to-day has been built 

 up along certain lines not only of physical, but 

 of mental and moral development that have 

 adapted it for a social and political environment 

 that is far different from that from which many 

 of these aliens come. Transplantation to the 

 new environment may have a certain effect on 

 the immigrants, just as transplantation to the 

 soil of California has had its effect on large 

 numbers of exotic plants. 



But in one case, as in the other, such changes 

 are, after all, only matters of minor detail. 



