432 EXPERIMENTS WITH PLANTS 



tion. Or the seeds may germinate, but the young 

 plants prove so weak that they cannot be raised. 

 Even in favorable cases not all the flowers yield seed, 

 but if only a few good seeds are obtained it is 

 sufficient for a start. 1 



All the seeds from the tree are carefully saved 

 and sown: as soon as they come up, the judgment 

 of the breeder comes into play. From the foliage he 

 is able to judge beforehand what the fruit will be, 

 and so save needless time and trouble by preserving 

 only the most promising. In order to make these 

 fruit quickly, they are cut off near the ground when 

 only a few inches high and grafted upon other trees, 

 where they often proceed to flower the third year 

 from the seed. When the blossoms appear, another 

 important question must be decided. Shall they be 

 pollinated with the pollen of a sister hybrid, or of 

 one of the two parents, or of another variety? Here, 

 again, comes the opportunity . for the greatest skill 

 and judgment, amounting in its highest manifestations 

 to positive genius, and yielding in the brief space of 

 a few years results which a lesser skill could not 

 compass in a lifetime. A successful plant- breeder 

 judges plant character as a great organizer judges 

 human character, partly by evident signs, partly by 

 an intuitive feeling for the more subtle differences 



1 The more difficult the cross the greater should be the number of 

 plants used. Thus, Mr. Burbank has succeeded by using large numbers in 

 crossing the Tobacco and the Petunia, a very difficult cross indeed. 



