312 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



tion of variations, the recognition of desirable modifications and the 

 intelligent and effective selection of them, i. e., the saving of those 

 plants to produce seed or cuttings which show the desirable varia- 

 tions and the discarding of all the others. In Burbank's gardens 

 the few tenderly cared for little potted plants or carefully grafted 

 seedlings represent the surviving fittest, and the great bonfires of 

 scores of thousands of uprooted others, the unfit, in this close 

 mimicry of Darwin and Spencer's struggle and survival in nature. 



"It is precisely in this double process of the recognition and selec- 

 tion of desirable variations that Burbank's genius comes into 

 particular play. Right here he brings something to bear on his 

 work that few other men have been able to do. It is the extraordi- 

 nary keenness of perception, the delicacy of recognition of desirable 

 variations in their (usually) small and to most men imperceptible 

 beginnings. Is it a fragrance that is sought? To Burbank in a bed 

 of hundreds of seedling walnuts scores of the odours of the plant 

 kingdom are arising and mingling from the fresh green leaves, but 

 each, mind you, from a certain single seedling or perhaps from a 

 similar pair or trio. But to me or to you, until the master prover 

 points out two or three of the more dominant single odours, the 

 impression on the olfactories is simply (or confusedly) that of one 

 soft elusive fragrance of fresh green leaves. Similarly Burbank 

 is a master at seeing, and a master at feeling. And besides he has 

 his own unique knowledge of correlations. Does this plum seed- 

 ling with its scores of leaves on its thin stem have those leaves 

 infmitesimally plumper, smoother or stronger, or with more even 

 margins and stronger petiole, or what not else, than any other 

 among a thousand similar childish trees? Then it is saved, for 

 it will bear a larger, or a sweeter, or a firmer sort of plum, or more 

 plums than the others. So to the bonfires with the others and to 

 the company of the elect with this 'fittest' one. Now this recogni- 

 tion, this knowledge of correlations in plant structure, born of the 

 exercise of a genius for perceiving through thirty years of oppor- 

 tunity for testing and perfecting it, is perhaps the most important 

 single thing which Burbank brings to his work that other men do 

 not (at least in such unusual degree of reliability). Enormous 

 industry, utter concentration and single-mindedness, deftness in 

 manipulation, fertility in practical resource, has Burbank and so 

 have numerous other breeders and experimenters. But in his per- 

 ception of variability in its forming, his recognition of its possi- 

 bilities of outcome, and in his scientific knowledge of correlations, 

 a knowledge that is real, for it is one that is relied on and built on, 

 and is at the very foundation of his success, Burbank has an 

 advantage of true scientific character over his fellow workers, and 



