238 LUTHER BURBANK 



was not until my twenty-first year that I entered 

 specifically on the work, although of course I had 

 been trained in all the tasks of the farmer, gar- 

 dener, and fruit grower on my father's farm 

 from earliest childhood. 



I had all along been serving an apprenticeship 

 that stood me in good stead now that the work 

 of market gardener and seed grower was taken 

 up as a business. 



Yet it is not certain that I should have been 

 led to put this knowledge to practical use at this 

 time had it not been for the stimulation and 

 fresh enthusiasm that came from the reading of 

 an extraordinary book. This book was Dar- 

 win's "Animals and Plants under Domestica- 

 tion." The work was first published, it will be 

 recalled, in 1868. It probably fell into my 

 hands a year or so later. It came to me with 

 a message that was not merely stimulating but 

 compelling. It aroused my imagination, gave 

 me insight into the world of plant life, and devel- 

 oped within me an insistent desire to go into the 

 field and find the answer to the problems that the 

 book only suggested. In particular it showed 

 to me the plants of the field in a new light. 



I had understood from Darwin's earlier work 

 that all life has evolved from lower forms; that, 

 therefore, species are not fixed and immutable, 



