LUTHER BURBANK 



made at a later period the fruit was in some cases 

 greatly superior in quality to that of either of the 

 parents. 



Still greater interest attaches, perhaps, to a 

 hybridizing experiment in which the parents were 

 Shaffer's Colossal raspberry and the Crystal 

 White blackberry. 



Some of the plants from this cross were of the 

 most tree-like proportions. Most of them, how- 

 ever, were barren, though they bloomed freely. 

 But there were exceptional ones that fruited, and 

 selected seedlings were grown from these through 

 a series of generations. In the fourth generation 

 a plant appeared which was of such extraordi- 

 nary characteristics that it was given the name of 

 Paradox. 



This plant was in all respects a most perfect 

 combination of the two ancestral forms from 

 which it sprang. The wood, bark, leaves, blos- 

 soms, prickles, roots, and seeds could not by any 

 test be proved to be like one or the other. The 

 fruit, produced in abundance, was an oval, light 

 red berry of good size, larger than that of either 

 progenitor, and of fair quality. 



Many of the first generation descendants of 

 the Paradox were partially barren, though bloom- 

 ing freely. Sterility as to fruit was often associ- 

 ated with gigantic growth. 



[68] 



