LUTHER BURBANK 



done to hasten their development, for Mr. Bur- 

 bank has discovered that stems thus grafted will 

 come to bearing much earlier than if left on their 

 original roots. Time is precious, particularly 

 when we are dealing with plants of such slow 

 growth as the fruit trees, and it is obviously worth 

 while to save a year or two, as is thus possible; 

 for at best an experiment in the development of 

 a new type of fruit must be carried out, as a 

 rule, through a good many generations, making 

 significant encroachments on the working life of 

 the plant experimenter himself. 



Where such a method as that just outlined is 

 carried out, it is obvious that everything depends 

 upon the skill with which selection is made. A 

 man lacking Mr. Burbank's "intuitional" skill 

 in such a selection would inevitably go wrong. 

 His experiments would come to nothing. He 

 would inadvertently destroy the best and preserve 

 the worst. By no mathematical chance could he 

 select the right dozen or score of individuals 

 among the tens of thousands. 



But that Mr. Burbank is able to make such se- 

 lections with a correctness that is little less than 

 weird has been demonstrated again and again 

 through tests in which various of the discarded 

 seedlings have been preserved and brought to 

 fruitage for comparison with the selected ones of 

 their fraternity. 



Always the selected individuals show more of 

 the quality that is being sought than is shown by 

 the specimens taken from the discard; thus jus- 



[12] 



