LUTHER BURBANK 



edge of botany and plant physiology. The more 

 he had studied the subject, the better he would 

 be able to appreciate what stonelessness in a plum 

 really means. The more he had worked in plant 

 development, the fuller would be his appreciation 

 of the labor represented in the reproduction of 

 this anomaly. 



And my visitor, being both a botanist and a 

 practical plant experimenter, was certainly greatly 

 surprised. 



WHAT THE STONE MEANS TO THE FRUIT 



The story of the development of the stoneless 

 plum has been told in an earlier chapter. 



It will be recalled that I worked primarily with 

 a small, partially stoneless plum that was found 

 in France a sour, acrid fruit of no interest except 

 for its partial lack of seed-covering. I crossed this 

 inedible fruit with a cultivated plum, and selected 

 and re-crossed through successive generations, 

 until I had segregated the characters of stoneless- 

 ness and good quality of flesh and re-assembled 

 them in a single individual. 



Further mention of the development of the 

 stoneless prune, through crossing the stoneless 

 plum with the French prune, with the ultimate 

 production of the Conquest prune, was given in 

 the preceding chapter. 



Here it is not necessary to repeat the details of 



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