LUTHER BURBANK 



hand that are of most admirable quality and yet 

 stoneless. In the ordinary French prune, from 

 three to six per cent, of the entire fruit is stone; 

 while in my stoneless prune called the "Conquest" 

 the fragment of stone does not represent more 

 than a thousandth part of the bulk or weight of 

 the fruit. 



And among the eight or ten hundred varieties 

 of stoneless plums now growing in my orchard, 

 there are sure to be some that will show still 

 further improvement. 



WHY THE TASK WAS DIFFICULT 



The task of producing a stoneless plum had 

 proved very difficult chiefly because it had all 

 along been necessary to bear in mind a number 

 of quite different objective points. 



It was not sufficient to produce a stoneless 

 plum. From the practical standpoint there would 

 be no object in that unless the fruit about the 

 stoneless kernel was of good size and of palatable 

 quality. And, unfortunately, there appeared to 

 be no tendency to correlate stonelessness with 

 good quality of fruit. 



In point of fact the tendency was quite the 

 other way; and, indeed, this was to be expected 

 in view of the fact that the original partially 

 stoneless plum was a small, acid fruit growing on 

 a wild bush. 



[112] 



