NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



duction of better varieties which slowly but 

 surely supplant the old ones. He makes note 

 of the fact, too, that the seed -ball of the 

 potato is less and less often found now upon 

 the common varieties, due to the fact that the 

 tuber of the potato itself is used in planting 

 exclusively. The continued disuse of any 

 organ in a plant, as in an animal, tends to its 

 weakening and final extinction. He notes 

 among plants which have gradually passed 

 through the same experience the sugar-cane, 

 banana, horse-radish, sweet potato and others. 

 Thousands of new potatoes are being bred 

 by Mr. Burbank in the midst of his new tests 

 in the search for better stock. Very much of 

 this is begun in the hothouse, in order to save 

 time. Selection here goes on upon an elaborate 

 scale, but, important as it always is in this 

 production of plants specifically valuable com- 

 mercially as well as those for adornment alone, 

 selection is not less important, in a commer- 

 cial production, than a knowledge of the needs 

 of the various parts of the world to which the 

 new production is to go. Here lie some of the 

 most important problems in all Mr. Burbank's 

 work, the solution calUng for the widest pos- 



90 



