LUTHER BURBANK 



and they were seen to develop into stalks of sugar- 

 cane, everyone except the physician himself was 

 greatly surprised. 



For it had been supposed that the sugar-cane 

 does not produce seed, and such a thing as a 

 seedling sugar-cane was hitherto unheard of. 



The sugar-cane does, in point of fact, belong 

 to that comparatively small company of cultivated 

 plants that have almost totally given up the habit 

 of seed-production. We have seen that the horse- 

 radish is another plant that has similarly stopped 

 producing seeds, and that the common potato has 

 almost abandoned the habit. Comment has been 

 made, also, on the rather extraordinary character 

 of this departure from the most sacred traditions 

 of plant life. 



That an organism, whose sole purpose beyond 

 the perpetuation of its own individual existence 

 might be said to be the production of seed, should 

 continue to grow and thrive and yet should totally 

 abandon the habit of seed-production seems 

 altogether anomalous. 



The explanation is found, as we have seen, in 

 the fact that man provides means for the propaga- 

 tion of horseradish and sugar-cane by division of 

 roots or by transplantation of cuttings. In the case 

 of the potato, nature herself has provided tubers 

 that take the place of seeds in a measure; and we 



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