LUTHER BURBANK 



the same conditions, grew only a few inches; and 

 a corresponding rate of growth characterizes the 

 seedlings as long as they live. But, although the 

 seedlings themselves proved so variable, their 

 fruit was singularly uniform in size and quality. 



As to shape, the fruit of the oriental pear is 

 usually oblate, approaching the globular. This 

 raises a rather curious, if not very important, 

 question as to whether the European pear owes 

 its very characteristic shape to artificial selection. 

 The ordinary pear, as everyone knows, has a form 

 that is so individual and so little duplicated, that 

 no single word of familiar usage describes it. In 

 this regard, as in a good many others, the pear is 

 unique. 



One would not commonly think of describing 

 anything as "apple-shaped," or "peach-shaped," 

 or "plum-shaped," but "pear-shaped" is a cogno- 

 men that is at once convenient and definitive. 



So, as I said, the fact that the oriental pear has 

 not assumed this shape has a certain interest and 

 suggestiveness. 



The hybridizing experiments that were begun 

 as soon as I was in possession of the oriental 

 seedlings called for more patience, perhaps, than 

 almost any other tests that the fruit experimenter 

 can make, for the very obvious reason that the 

 pear is the slowest to mature of all the fruits grown 



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