108 City Homes on Country Lanes 



senses is supplemented by a knowledge of the coordina- 

 tion of parts — say between the stem or leaf and the 

 future fruit of a plant — that is so penetrating and 

 mystifying as to seem intuitional, and to suggest occult 

 powers of divination. 



"As an instance, you may see Mr. Burbank striding 

 along a row of, let us say, plum seedlings comprising 

 some thousands of plants, perhaps a foot high. He 

 seems to inspect the little trees but casually, except 

 that now and again he pauses for a moment to indicate 

 with a motion of his hand that this or that plant has 

 particularly attracted his attention. A helper, or 

 more likely two helpers — for one can scarcely keep up 

 with the energetic leader — will be at hand to note the 

 signals ; and a bit of white cloth will be tied about each 

 successively selected seedling; or two pieces of cloth, 

 or even three, in case an individual has seemed to show 

 quite exceptional promise. 



"And with that, one stage of the work of selection 

 is finished. Perhaps ten thousand seedlings have been 

 passed in review in a half hour, and conceivably fifty 

 or a hundred have been selected for preservation. These 

 have shown to the keen scrutiny of the plant experi- 

 menter such qualities of stem and bud and leaf as to 

 forecast the type of fruit sought to be developed in this 

 particular experiment." 



The principles of selective breeding which Mr. Bur- 

 hank employs apply to every department of production. 

 He has vised I hem not only ill the production of new 

 varieties, but even new species of fruits, berries, nuts, 

 vegetables and grains. Of all his productions the Bur- 

 hank potato, which he produced when 26 years of age, 



