268 LUTHER BURBANK: 



of the seeds has been bred away. Wild pine- 

 apple fruits are crowded with seeds, but who has 

 seen seeds in our cultivated ones ? Yet the pack- 

 ers of pineapple in the Hawaiian Islands tell 

 me that about one in a million of the cultivated 

 ones are found containing large quantities of 

 seed — a reversion to the wild type. 



Seedless raspberries, blackberries, gooseber- 

 ries, currants, with the energy saved, reinvested 

 in added size or better flavor, call for some one 

 to bring them about. Grapes more or less seed- 

 less we have had for a hundred years or more, 

 and one seedless orange has been known for half 

 a century and the seedless banana has been 

 known perhaps for a thousand years, while all 

 wild bananas are half filled with large, black, 

 hard, bulletlike seeds. Seedless figs, even 

 might be produced, but these could be counted 

 as no improvement, for the oily seeds of the fig 

 give the fruit a part of its flavor. 



Thornless blackberries and spineless cactus 

 are productions of priceless value, as is be- 

 ing abundantly proven. Many other thornless 

 plants are to come shortly. Why thorns at all 

 in the world of useful plants, when useful plants 

 no longer need them? They are as expensive 

 and useless as horned cattle, which are every- 

 where being replaced by hornless ones. 



