LUTHER BURBANK 



And a peach retaining its recognized qualities 

 of flesh and having at its center an edible nut like 

 the almond with thin shell would obviously be a 

 desirable acquisition. 



Such a combination of fruit and nut would be 

 doubly desirable if the stone that surrounds the 

 kernel can be eliminated as it has been eliminated 

 in the stoneless plums. 



As yet very little has been accomplished in this 

 direction. There is, to be sure, a Bolivian peach 

 which is remarkable in that it has a globular stone 

 very little larger than a good-sized pea. The fruit 

 itself is of intermediate size and poor quality; 

 moreover, it is produced sparsely, and the tree is 

 peculiarly subject to the peach maladies. The 

 fruit has been thought hardly worth crossing with 

 our ordinary peaches on account of its inferior 

 qualities, yet the diminutive stone suggests that it 

 would be possible by such crossing to produce a 

 superior peach having an exceedingly small stone. 



Time and patience would, of course, be re- 

 quired to carry out such an experiment, but its 

 results could hardly be in doubt. 



It is possible, however, that the experiment of 

 reducing the size of the peach stone will prove 

 less inviting than the attempt to remove the stone 

 altogether. My success in producing the stoneless 

 plum points the way to a possible development 



[170] 



