LUTHER BURBANK 



VAEIED OPPORTUNITIES 



The foregoing instances will serve to guide you 

 in experiments that may be applied to all the re- 

 maining products of the vegetable garden. 



Whatever the vegetable to which you pay atten- 

 tion, you will discover that there is a considerable 

 range of variation among different specimens of 

 the same variety. By selecting for seed purposes 

 the specimens that present in the fullest measure 

 the quality that you desire to accentuate, you will 

 at once be on the track of the development of new 

 and improved varieties. 



If in any case you find that the plants do not 

 vary in the direction in which you think there 

 might be improvement, you may adopt the expedi- 

 ent of cross-pollenizing the flowers, uniting dif- 

 ferent varieties of the same species or individuals 

 of closely related species. 



You may, for example, cross-fertilize different 

 varieties of onions, or you may hybridize the 

 onion with the leek or the chive. 



Mr. Burbank has produced numberless new 

 varieties of the onion family by hybridizing its 

 different members. Some of these have beautiful 

 blossoms, and some have bulbs of extraordinary 

 size. The Burbank pink chive, for example, is a 

 decorative border flower as well as a palatable 

 table vegetable. And there are beds of his hybrid 

 onions that take fairly high rank in the flower 

 garden. 



Meantime he has developed varieties of the 

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