256 LUTHER BURBANK 



make environment do by spreading before us 

 more combinations of heredity — we accomplish 

 in two years what otherwise might take two life- 

 times. 



We see that the science of plant life is not yet 

 an exact science, like mathematics, in which two 

 and two always equals four. It is not a science 

 in which the definite answers to specific problems 

 can be found in any book. 



It is a science which involves endless experi- 

 menting — endless seeking after better and better 

 results. 



Theories are good, because if we do not per- 

 mit them to mislead us, they may save us time; 

 laws, and maps, and charts, and diagrams — sys- 

 tems of classification and of nomenclature — all 

 these are good, because, if they are faulty, they 

 still reveal to us the viewpoint of some one who, 

 with diligence, has devoted himself to a single 

 phase, at least, of a complex subject. 



But we must remember that the theories, most 

 of them, are built around dead jplants. 



While the facts we are to use are to be gath- 

 ered from living ones. 



So, every once in a while, when we come to a 

 crossroads where that kind of theory and this 

 kind of fact seem to part, let us stick to the thing 

 which the hving plant tells us, and assume that 



