ON HURRYING EVOLUTION 



without our influence, nature might easily have 



taken till 3913. 



***** 



The real work before us, then, is to study 

 nature's processes to learn to read the history 

 of plants, to uncover tendencies and understand 

 their trends and then to provide short-cuts so 

 that the far distant improvement may be made 

 a matter of months, instead of centuries. 



These short-cuts, and their application, from 

 this point on, will be our principal study; perhaps 

 a single illustration here, more comprehensive 

 than that of the daisy, will serve to give a clearer 

 idea of their kind: 



Let us take, then, as a specimen, Mr. Burbank's 

 methods in the production of a new cherry. 



First, as with the daisy, there must be an ideal 

 some particular kind of cherry of which we 

 have made a mental blue print. Let us say that 

 our blue print calls for a large, sweet cherry, 

 which will ripen early and bear long an eating 

 cherry rather than a canning cherry, so that 

 appearance is a great factor. 



The first step would be to gather in our 

 elements; to pick out a large, beautiful cherry 

 which, after the manner of many large, beautiful 

 fruits, may be more or less insipid in taste; then to 

 select another cherry, size and appearance incon- 



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