LUTHER BURBANK 



and to plant breeders through the official publica- 

 tion of his methods and results. 



I have had opportunity to study the entire 

 record of Mr. Burbank 's work in manuscript, and 

 to confer personally with Mr. Burbank himself as 

 to all its details. I have been profoundly im- 

 pressed with the importance of this work not only 

 in its direct bearings on horticulture and agricul- 

 ture, but in its application to the breeding of the 

 human plant a subject, it may be added, in which 

 Mr. Burbank himself is intensely interested. It 

 has seemed worth while to suggest in detail the 

 application of Mr. Burbank 's methods guided al- 

 ways by their proved results in the vegetable 

 world to the question of the improvement of the 

 human race, with particular reference always to 

 the needs of the individual reader in everyday 

 life. 



Such an attempt will be made in the following 

 chapter. I have thought that the pertinency of 

 the topic and its practical possibilities might 

 perhaps be emphasized by citing at the outset the 

 authentic anecdote of the seven brothers who, with 

 rare prevision, more than two centuries ago, fore- 

 cast the Burbank methods in some at least of their 

 most important applications, and in so doing ex- 

 alted their family to the foremost place not merely 

 in one nation, but in many nations. With this 

 family of king makers we have no further present 

 concern; but we shall have occasion to examine 

 their pedigree more in detail in another connec- 

 tion, since it gives graphic illustration of certain 



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