BURBANK'S WAY WITH TREES 



from among thousands of hybrid seedlings. 

 Among the thousands, there were of course repre- 

 sentatives of numberless different combinations 

 of the ancestral traits of the four parent species. 

 It would have been possible to develop gigantic 

 races as well as dwarfed ones. Some of the speci- 

 mens first developed were of large size and enor- 

 mously prolific. But to Mr. Burbank it seemed 

 that the most desirable type of chestnut Tor the 

 purposes of the horticulturist would be one that 

 produced an abundant crop of exceedingly large 

 nuts on a tree that attained only shrub-like pro- 

 portions. So his selections were made with this 

 idea in mind, and the dwarfed chestnuts of Sebas- 

 topol are the tangible exemplification of that ideal. 



In conducting his experiments, of course Mr. 

 Burbank, here as always, had in mind a great 

 variety of desirable qualities. One of his novelties 

 is a line of hybrid chestnuts in which the burs 

 are being deprived of their spines through selec- 

 tive breeding. 



It has been pointed out that he seeks always 

 to develop plants that show great resistance to 

 disease. The hybrid chestnuts are no exception 

 to the rule. There is reason to believe that they 

 are immune to the attacks of the fungous pest that 

 has destroyed the native chestnuts everywhere in 

 the neighborhood of New York, and which is ex- 

 tending its ravages in all directions year by year, 

 with full prospect that ultimately it will leave no 

 tree of this species standing between Maine and 

 the Carolinas. 



[211] 



