250 LUTHER BURBANK 



virtually half a century the large, luscious, juicy 

 tomato we now know is universally to be found 

 in our markets, in season and out. 



No man can say how many thousands or tens 

 of thousands of years it took wild environment to 

 separate the tomato from the seventy- four others 

 of its family. Yet, in less than half a century, 

 see what changes man, as an element of environ- 

 ment, has worked! 



We take the seeds of our Ponderosa tomatoes, 

 and midsummer brings us new Ponderosas — so 

 well have we succeeded in fixing the traits we 

 desire. 



But were we to take those same seeds to the 

 tropics and plant them under the conditions of 

 only fifty years ago an entirely different thing 

 would happen. 



The first generation would be Ponderosas, 

 more or less like those we grow here. 



But in the second generation, or, at latest, the 

 third, the seeds of those very Ponderosas, when 

 planted, would grow into vines which bear the 

 old type of tomato — the size of a hickory nut — 

 an immediate response, almost, to the wil^ 

 tropical environment which prevailed before man 

 began its culture. 



From the botanists of only a century ago, 

 examining only dead tomato blossoms from the 



