NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



dipped in a weak solution of lye, in order to 

 thin and crack the skin, to enable the mois- 

 ture easily to escape when the drying process 

 comes, thus preventing fermentation. After 

 they are dipped they are placed in the sun to 

 dry or, in regions where there is not sufficient 

 sunshine, in machine driers. Some prunes have 

 so thick a skin that they require far too much 

 lye treatment, some are so thin that they 

 burst open under the treatment and are thus 

 destroyed for regular prune packing. Mr. 

 Burbank has obviated this difficulty by breed- 

 ing a prune with a skin so delicately veined 

 and so susceptible to the solution that it needs 

 but a trifling dipping to crack in fine thread- 

 like lines and thus permit the escape of the 

 moisture. This new prune, by thus having 

 its skin bred to precisely the right thickness, 

 must supplant other prunes, either too thick 

 or too thin or too variable. 



The extension of this line of Mr. Burbank's 

 work is practically limitless. DeVries, the 

 Dutch botanist elsewhere referred to, com- 

 menting upon the extensive work of Mr 

 Burbank, says: 



"Specialization with him is not the limit- 



202 



