LUTHER BURBANK 



"If we want to take advantage of a climbing 

 tendency in a plant or an animal, let us by all 

 means find a plant or an animal in whose heredity 

 that climbing tendency is a part. Let us not try 

 to teach monkeys to bark, or dogs to swing from 

 the limbs of trees by their tails; let us not try to 

 make corn climb the hop pole, or to transform 

 hops into shade trees. 



"Maybe these things could be done. In fact, 

 with unlimited time, there is no question that 

 they could be done. But with plenty of plants 

 about us with ready-made heredities of which we 

 can avail ourselves in a single season, it would be 

 folly to try to accomplish the same result in a 

 harder \vay, w r ell knowing that only the twentieth 

 or thirtieth generation ahead of us could see the 

 results of our work. 



"In our search for heredities we shall find 

 many plants which are scarcely worth working 

 with plants whose environments have not led 

 into heredities which are desirable for our ends. 



"But at the same time we shall find scores and 

 scores of plants in the least expected places- 

 plants like the cactus, which, at first, seem impos- 

 sible of use which with a little encouragement 



yield us rare heredities for our work." 



***** 



When the masons, and carpenters, and deco- 



[174] 



