LUTHER BURBANK 



among the ancestors of the guinea pig races with 

 four toes; and doubtless if we go far enough 

 back we should find ancestors of the plum that 

 produced a seed having no stony covering. And 

 we are perhaps not far wrong in assuming that it 

 was the long-subordinated influence of this vastly 

 remote ancestor that, in the case of my plums, 

 sided with me, so to speak, against the forces of 

 the more recent heredity, and made possible the 

 ultimate success of my hybridizing experiments. 

 THE VALUE OF THE NEW PRODUCT 



We are so accustomed to putting up with the 

 annoyance of the stone in the fruit that we for 

 the most part never give it a thought. But a 

 moment's reflection makes it clear that the plum 

 stone serves man no useful purpose, while the 

 inconvenience it gives us is obvious. 



It requires no argument to show that a solid 

 fruit without a stone would be far more accept- 

 able. 



But this is not the only reason, although 

 perhaps a sufficient one, for the development of 

 the stoneless fruit. The other reason looks to 

 economy of production and saving of material 

 from the standpoint of the tree itself. It has been 

 estimated that a tree requires several times as 

 much solid material and the expenditure of far 

 more energy, to produce the stony covering of 



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