LUTHER BURBANK 



In reality, the task of the experimenter who 

 would develop a new and really valuable variety 

 of plum or cherry or apple or spineless cactus, is 

 to be compared not with the task of breeding 

 trotting-horses as they are, but rather to the 

 task that would confront the breeder were he to 

 attempt to develop a race of trotting-horses which 

 should retain the capacity to trot a mile in less 

 than two minutes, yet at the same time should be 

 big and powerful enough to serve on occasion as 

 draught horses; should be always of some pre- 

 determined color, say bright bay; and should be 

 as hardy and require as little attention as the 

 toughest broncho. 



It requires no great amount of imagination to 

 see that the task of breeding race horses would 

 be quite different from what it is, were the 

 specifications such as these. 



Yet I repeat that the qualities that the plant 

 experimenter usually seeks to combine in his new 

 variety of flower or fruit are at least as varied and 

 as difficult to fix in combination as the qualities 

 just suggested for the supposititious new breed of 

 race horses. 



THE SHASTA ON THE WITNESS STAND 



Let us by way of illustration recall the case of 

 the Shasta daisy which, the reader will remember, 

 was developed by the union of three different 



