92 LUTHER BURBANK 



Let the cactus, battle-scarred and inured to 

 hardship, teach us our first great lesson in plant 

 improvement : 



That our plants are what they are because of 

 environment; that simply by observing their 

 structures, their tendencies, their habits, their in- 

 dividual peculiarities, we can read their histories 

 back ages and ages before there were men and 

 animals — read it, almost, as an open book; that 

 our plants have lived their lives not by quiet 

 rote and rule, but in a turmoil of emergency; 

 and, just as they have always changed with their 

 surroundings, so now, day by day, they continue 

 to change to fit themselves to new environments ; 

 and that we, to bring forth new characteristics in 

 them, to transform them to meet our ideals, have 

 but to surround them with new environments — 

 not at haphazard, but along the lines of our 

 definite desires. 



It is far more wonderful even that 

 plants grow at all than that they 

 can so readily adapt themselves to 

 changing conditions. 



