LUTHER BURBANK 



lack of merit, but because the parent plants from 

 which the hybrids grew belonged to a family of 

 poisonous plants. 



Suppose the hue and cry thus raised should be 

 given an element of plausibility by the fact that 

 some unscrupulous person had sold to gardeners 

 a plant of a different species from either of the 

 parents of your hybrid, yet of an allied race, and 

 had claimed that this plant, which bears a fruit 

 of doubtful edibility, is identical with the one you 

 had introduced. 



Suppose all this, I say, and then try to imagine 

 just what would be your attitude of mind toward 

 the work you had accomplished on one hand, and 

 the persons who not always for the best motives 

 or without prejudice were its traducers. 



THE SUNBERRY AND ITS CRITICS 



In suggesting this I am only asking you to put 

 yourself in my place and imagine what must be 

 my natural attitude of mind toward one of the 

 most celebrated, and without doubt the most be- 

 rated, of all my plant productions the fruit which 

 I named the Sunberry, and which the dealer to 

 whom I sold it rechristened without my consent 

 and much against my wishes the "Wonderberry." 



For the supposititious case that I have just out- 

 lined really summarizes the facts as to the produc- 

 tion arid introduction and traduction of that fruit. 



[106] 



