48 LUTHER BURBANK 



eooDomize in the shell covering of her tgg in case 

 lime it Uddng in her food. 



The same sort of eoonomy is practiced when 

 the human child finds inadequate nourishment. 

 In such case the bones may be not only small but 

 drfrctivr in mineral subatanoe, a wdl-reoogniied 

 ibnormality resulting with which med- 

 ical men are familiar 



So it seems plausible iliat a paucity of proper 

 food materials was the explanation of the origin 

 of the original Sans SoffMi. 



It is in keeping with this explanation that the 

 Sans No^au is, as we hare seen, a small scraggly 

 ahruK a mere dwarf as compared with the arer- 

 age stature of trees of its family; and that its 

 fruit is reduced to the proportions of a small 

 berry, and is utterly lacking in thoae qualities of 

 sweetness and flavor that are the almost universal 

 characteristic of other stone fruits. 



In a word, then, it is highly probable that the 

 plum that supplied the character of stonelessness, 

 upon which my experimental endeavors in the 

 production of a marketable stoneless plum was 

 founded, was a pathological product. 



I may add tliat many other "sports*' or muta- 

 tions in the vegetable world that have furnished 

 a basis for the evolution of new races or species 

 may \try probably have had the same origin. 



