350 LUTHER BURBANK 



And, figures aside, the essential principle of 

 the segregation of characters, and their redistri- 

 bution into three essential groups, one represent- 

 ing each parent, and one combined as in the first- 

 generation hybrid, is as clearly stated as can be 

 desired. 



The interest of all this hinges solely on the fact 

 that the statement was published in 1898, based 

 obviously on observations made prior to that 

 date ; at a time, therefore, when no one living had 

 the remotest knowledge of the discovery made by 

 Mendel more than thirty years before. Mendel 

 himself died in 1884, and the rediscovery of his 

 work was not made until a year or two after the 

 date of my catalogue, just quoted. 



And I may fairly assume that there were few, 

 if any, botanists or plant developers in the world, 

 at the date of this publication, who had any such 

 clear conception of the meaning and interpreta- 

 tion of the prediction contained in the quoted 

 paragraph as my own original observations had 

 given me. 



In fact, the observation on the seeds of the 

 Paradox walnut, as here quoted, was made quite 

 casually. 



I did not put it forward as constituting a new 

 pronouncement in heredity, because it simply 

 represented a specific application of a general 



