LUTHER BURBANK 



that are now widely separated were nearer to- 

 gether and hence capable of interbreeding. 



And as there are infinite gradations as to the 

 amount of the divergence between the extant spe- 

 cies of to-day, might we not reasonably suppose 

 that there are many of these extant species that 

 have not yet diverged beyond the point of hy- 

 bridizing with the production of fertile offspring? 

 TESTING THE THEORY 



Just how far I had been carried along such 

 lines of reasoning before I undertook to put the 

 matter to a test, it would perhaps be difficult or 

 quite impossible at this remote day to say with 

 certainty. 



But in any event my premonitions in the mat- 

 ter were sufficiently tangible to lead me, even 

 when scarcely more than a youth in Massachu- 

 setts, to attempt hybridizing experiments. And 

 the results of these experiments were sufficiently 

 encouraging to give me early assurance that I was 

 on the right track. 



So it was with a very definite purpose in view 

 that I began sending to the remotest regions for 

 specimens of different species or varieties of gar- 

 den or orchard plants, having full confidence that 

 when I brought together these remote cousins I 

 should find some at least that were still near 

 enough to their common ancestral stem to be mu- 



[48] 



