LUTHER BURBANK 



merely of the fruit but of the tree on which it 

 grows. 



For within the infinitesimal structure of the 

 nucleus, by the most mystifying of all Nature's 

 feats of jugglery, are lodged those hereditary fac- 

 tors or determiners that will ultimately transmit 

 the traits of the ancestral tree to the tree of the 

 future. 



In the widest sense it is true that the sole pur- 

 pose of the entire plant is to produce a certain 

 number cf these germinal nuclei, each represent- 

 ing the union of a pollen grain with an ovule; each 

 carefully encased in the structure that we call a 

 seed; and each capable of reproducing, with sun- 

 dry modifications, the characteristics of the parent 

 plant, or, in a profounder view, the blended char- 

 acteristics of the entire ancestral race which the 

 plant represents. 



When we consider the seed in this way it does 

 not seem strange that all the resources of Nature 

 should concentrate on the development of the 

 fruit structure in which the all-important seed or 

 cluster of seeds finds lodgment. And by the same 

 token it is comprehensible that Nature will hold 

 to the seed with the most unwavering persistency. 



And so it is not strange that the plant experi- 

 menter should be able to alter the size and texture 

 and quality of the fruit pulp far more readily than 



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