LUTHER BURBANK 



way, for example, you might see in his greenhouse 

 box after box, each showing tens of thousands of 

 gladiolus seedlings. Day after day the scrutiny 

 of these multitudes of little plants is continued, 

 the obvious weaklings being weeded out, until a 

 fraction of the original number remained to be 

 transplanted to the fields, and permitted to de- 

 velop and reveal their possibilities. But even 

 after all the obvious undesirables were eliminated, 

 there would still remain hundreds of thousands 

 of plants to be set out in long rows in the experi- 

 ment garden at Sebastopol, each given equal op- 

 portunity with all the others. And, as we have 

 seen, the ultimate result of the experiment would 

 be the selection by Mr. Burbank at flowering time 

 of perhaps a dozen or a score among all the hun- 

 dreds of thousands as representing the closest 

 approximation to the ideal type at which he aimed. 

 Or perhaps a single plant would be found among 

 the myriads that combined in fair measure all the 

 good qualities that were sought. The experiment 

 would then be completed by "line breeding " from 

 this individual, saving all its seeds, and selecting 

 among its progeny (which are sure to show a con- 

 siderable range of variation) those that are best, 

 until a race has been developed in which the de- 

 sired qualities are accentuated to the maximum. 



STUDIES IN COLOB VAEIATION 



Probably you could not do better in beginning 

 your experiments with the ornamental plants of 



[162] 



