LUTHER BURBANK 



He must be content to select from among 

 thousands of seedlings the one or five or ten or 

 fifty that appear to him most promising. To these 

 he must pin his faith, and all the rest must be 

 destroyed to make room for other plants. 



Otherwise he would require not twenty odd 

 acres, which make up the total area of my experi- 

 mental farm, but hundreds or even thousands of 

 acres. 



And to keep track of the multitudinous 

 seedlings would require the aid not of the half 

 dozen or so assistants whose cooperation makes 

 my experiments possible, but of a small army of 

 equally industrious workers. 



SYSTEMATIC WORK IMPERATIVE 



But, having thus outlined the limitations that 

 necessarily attend work conducted on a large and 

 comprehensive scale, let me now proceed to elab- 

 orate somewhat the other side of the story. 



Let me outline the various practical methods 

 of recording experiments that have been devel- 

 oped in the course of my years of experience. 

 Let me in particular point out some of the short- 

 cuts that have made it possible for me to record 

 the essentials, and even in important cases the 

 details, of progress, with a minimum expenditure 

 of time and labor. 



Among the essentials that cannot be overlooked 



[258] 



