LUTHER BURBANK 



The habit of self-fertilization may preserve 

 for a certain number of generations a plant 

 that would otherwise have been completely 

 exterminated; but at best it marks a stage of 

 degeneration and decline. The plant that follows 

 it is in a sense retracing its steps down the ladder 

 of evolution by which its ancestors have made 

 ascent. 



And so it is not surprising to find that the vast 

 majority of the useful plants of orchard and 

 garden have kept up the traditional alliance with 

 the insects to which they owe the multiplicity 

 of their specific forms and the virility of the 

 individual members of their organization. 

 THE WISEST OF PLANTS 



It is flowers of the great brotherhood of insect- 

 lovers, then, that chiefly claim the attention of 

 the plant experimenter, because these are the 

 ones that make up the chief census of orchard 

 and garden. 



As a matter of course it is plants of this 

 fraternity that are of interest to the amateur, 

 because, generally speaking, it is these alone that 

 put forth blossoms that please the eye. 



Whoever is interested to undertake experi- 

 ments in plant breeding must then, familiarize 

 himself with the mechanisms by which the plant 

 makes known its appeal to the insect and those 



[82] 



