LUTHER BURBANK 



He is performing, as I said before, the most 

 marvelous of all experiments. 



He deals with the same matter with which the 

 chemist deals in his laboratory; but with this mat- 

 ter aggregated into new and wonderful combina- 

 tions which alone make possible those responses 

 to the environment and that primeval capacity for 

 growth and of self -reproduction that differentiates 

 what we call living tissue from the matter out of 

 which it is constructed. 



But if the plant experimenter must be allowed 

 to indulge in such visions he must none the less 

 remember that the microcosm of the germ cell 

 represents after all only a transitory and transi- 

 tional phase in the life cycle of the organisms with 

 which he deals. 



He may love to ponder over the mysteries of 

 the nucleus of the germ cell, but he cannot offer 

 that nucleus for sale in the market. 



The tangible product of his investigations, the 

 one that will have commercial importance, must 

 find representation in germ cells that have in- 

 finitely multiplied until their descendants are 

 piled together in such unthinkable numbers that 

 they make up the structure of visible plants, and, 

 to meet the exigencies of the case under consider- 

 ation, of visible and tangible fruits of the or- 

 chard. 



[188] 



