190 LUTHER BURBANK 



its center — or to accomplish any one of a num- 

 ber of other ideals which we may have set up for 

 our production. 



So on we go, season after season, always select- 

 ing, obtaining one this year which bears seeds for 

 next, with the bees and the winds anxious to 

 Carry on the work, if we are too lazy or do not 

 have the time; narrowing our lines of heredity 

 down and down until finally some day — maybe 

 fourteen months after the experiment began, or 

 maybe fourteen years, we can say: *'Here is a 

 plant such as no man ever saw before— here is 

 the exact plant which we have planned." 



"But will the seed of this new daisy," some 

 one asks, "produce more daisies of this same 

 color?" 



Of all of the seeds of that daisy there might 

 not be one which would reproduce the color which 

 we have obtained. The seeds of that daisy sown 

 together in a bed may be expected to show as 

 great a variation as the seeds of the white and 

 the orange exhibited when they were first planted 

 after the bees and the winds had done their 

 work. 



But there need be no discouragement. By di- 

 viding the roots of many plants or raising them 

 from slips or cuttings we can, in a single season, 

 from a single plant, produce a great quantity of 



