ON THE POSSIBILITIES 



produce new races of plants to withstand the boll 

 weevil, the codling moth and the San Jose scale; 

 and with complaints so broadcast, and successes 

 so marked and so many, does not the perfection 

 of disease- and pest-resisting varieties seem an 

 important and lucrative field? 



Nor are the insects and diseases the only 

 enemies which plants can be taught to overcome. 

 Mr. Burbank has trained trees to bloom later in 

 the season so as to avoid the late frosts which 

 might nip the buds; and to bear earlier, that their 

 fruit may be gathered before the early frosts of 

 fall have come to destroy. He has encouraged 

 the gladiolus to thicken its stalk and to rearrange 

 its blossoms, so that the wind no longer ruins its 

 beauty. 



And the prune, which must lie on the ground 

 till it cures, had the habit, here in California, of 

 ripening at about the time of the equinoctial rains 

 of fall. Mr. Burbank helped it to shift its bearing 

 season earlier so that, now, when the rains come, 

 the prune crop has been harvested and is safely 

 under cover. 



In all of these enemies of plant life, the insects, 

 and the diseases, and the rains, and the frosts, 

 and the snows, and even the parching heat of 

 the plains, there are opportunities for the plant 

 improver. 



[261] 



