BREEDING FOR PERFUME 



easy avenue to a land of blue roses. A lesser 

 man would have hastened forward on the 

 road that lead to this strange floral wonder; 

 but, despite the novelty and the fascination 

 that always surround the development of a 

 new creation, he would not enter in upon it 

 when so many greater and more valuable 

 things for the advancement of the world lay 

 before him. 



So everything that he does must have, 

 if possible, a definite practical end in view, 

 — it must help the world along. 



So in the breeding of flowers for perfume, 

 the paramount thing, from the practical 

 point of view, is to breed the perfume so 

 that it will have a direct, commercial bear- 

 ing. Mr. Burbank has demonstrated the com- 

 plete pliability of flowers not only in the 

 way of color and structure but in the 

 way of odor. It now becomes practicable to 

 take a strain of roses, for example, which 

 are prolific and hardy but with little or no 

 odor, and breed into them the most power- 

 ful of perfumes. It now becomes possible 

 to take a flower having a perfume not par- 

 ticularly agreeable, — indeed, one positively 



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