LUTHER BURBANK 



from any one of the parent forms that it would 

 be regarded by any botanist who found it in the 

 wild state as a unique species. It is, in short, a 

 new species of daisy created by artificial selection 

 under the hand of the plant developer. It was 

 named the Shasta daisy. 



Various series of experiments in selective 

 breeding have developed numerous varieties of 

 Shastas, some having broad flat ray flowers, 

 others thin and fimbriated or tubular ones, yet 

 others being partially double. In a word, the 

 Shasta daisy is not only a new form of flower, 

 but one that has developed numberless varieties, 

 comparable, therefore, with various other types 

 of cultivated flowers. Yet there was no such thing 

 as a Shasta daisy in existence until Mr. Burbank 

 combined the different species from Europe, 

 America, and Japan, and thus gave opportunity 

 for the blending of hereditary factors that had 

 their origin in the environing conditions of three 

 continents. 



The case of the Shasta daisy, then, may be 

 taken as typifying the second of the two impor- 

 tant methods through which the plant developer 

 operates, the method of hybridization. 



Of course the perfected Shasta represents also 

 the use of the other method, that of selective 

 breeding. Indeed, the two methods go hand in 

 hand, each supplementing the other. Taken to- 

 gether, they constitute the basis of a complete 

 method of plant development, and through their 

 application all the possible transformations that 



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