THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 



upon it, and is fully equal to the Paradox. I 

 recall seeing one of these Royal trees standing 

 isolated in the front yard of a fruit ranch on 

 the road to Sebastopol. It had been set out, a 

 tiny sapling, at about the same time the trees 

 were set out in the street in front of Mr. Bur- 

 bank's home, and in the dozen years it had 

 grown to magnificent proportions, completely 

 dwarfing the other trees in the vicinity, even 

 the large native live-oaks which are so conspic- 

 uous a feature of the northern California land- 

 scape. Each of the new walnuts grows in 

 comely fashion, having no bad habits and 

 readily yielding to the pruning-knife or to 

 training, in case a branch shows any signs of 

 ungraceful waywardness. 



In a general way, the physical characteristics 

 of each tree are quite like those of the other. 



These trees have been bred for purely com- 

 mercial ends, though they possess rare beauty 

 as well. The nuts, at first, were not thought 

 to have any special value, the object in the 

 scheme of breeding being to develop the tree 

 itself rather than its fruit, but, as the experi- 

 ment progressed, it was found that certain of 

 the seedhngs produced fine hybrid walnuts, 



49 



