320 LUTHER BURBANK 



result of developing a race of corn bearing grain 

 on the stalk that gradually supplanted the old 

 form altogether — except, indeed, that the wild 

 teosinte maintained the traditions of its ances- 

 tors, unspoiled by cultivation. 



I may add that the experiment of running the 

 tunicate corn back to the primeval wild type by 

 selective breeding is as simple as would be the 

 attempt to run it forward within a few genera- 

 tions to the plane of the good varieties of culti- 

 vated corn, but even this is comparatively easy 

 of accomplishment. 



To stimulate and accelerate degenerative proc- 

 esses is comparatively easy; to make progress, 

 as civilized man interprets progress, is far more 

 difficult. 



One reason at least for this is that the quali- 

 ties that man prizes in a cultivated plant are 

 usually not those that adapt the plant to make 

 its way in a state of nature. They are new in- 

 novations that to a certain extent run counter 

 to the hereditary tendencies that have been forti- 

 fied in the wild plant through countless genera- 

 tions of natural selection. 



Rainbow Corn 



Interesting experiments of another type that 

 I have carried out in more recent years have re- 



