LUTHER BURBANK 



importance, his first creation, down through 

 the long line that stretches across a third of 

 a century and is still moving outward and 

 upward, — always constructive. He has taken 

 life and, while, apparently, removing some- 

 thing from it in order to reach his aims, has, 

 in reality, only added to it, transforming it by 

 constructive methods solely into a higher form 

 of life than it had ever before possessed. And 

 it is a higher form, too, than unaided nature 

 ever could have attained. Mr. Burbank stands 

 as the most conspicuous aid to Nature in 

 improving plant products for the race, the 

 leader in massing and commanding her forces 

 in this direction ; should it so be that others 

 shall arise to carry forward his great work 

 when he shall have laid it down, his influ- 

 ence will be still more difficult to measure in 

 words. 



His life-work may be included under a dual 

 aim, so to call it, embracing, first, the recreat- 

 ing or regenerating of old forms of plant-Hfe, 

 wild, neglected or degenerate and the im- 

 proving of those by many considered satisfac- 

 tory but in which he sees room for important 

 additions ; and, second, the creation of entirely 



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