30 LUTHER BURBANK 



now spread out into a vast realm far too 

 broad for any one man to explore in a 

 lifetime. Burbank's special field is that 

 of plant genetics; here he is artist as well 

 as scientist. Academic, no — but science 

 is not necessarily bred in the academy. 

 Until within the last half century uni- 

 versities fought shy of it, regarding exact 

 knowledge as "materialistic" or even 

 **heretical. " Burbank is not a physiol- 

 ogist, still less histologist, and the phe- 

 nomena of the physical basis of heredity, 

 cell division and cell multiplication, so 

 illumined during the last thirty years, 

 he has not studied in the universities, 

 though his large library contains most 

 of the books which relate to these sub- 

 jects. In the inheritance of the influ- 

 ence of all environment he shows a faith 

 most botanists of the day have hesitated 

 to share. The extended acceptance of 

 Mendelism and mutation as final words 



