LUTHER BURBANK 



In some cases I had brought seeds with me, 

 and was able to complete under the new conditions 

 experiments that had been begun in New England. 

 In other cases it was necessary to start anew, but 

 I had experience as a guide, and that constituted 

 an asset that often proved a wonderful time saver. 



In the case of the tomato, experimentation was 

 reopened on a comprehensive scale about the year 

 1887. It was at this time that I hybridized the 

 common potato and the currant tomato and pro- 

 duced the interesting new form about which we 

 have just spoken. The common tomato needs no 

 description, but the currant tomato is much less 

 familiarly known. It is a plant with long, slender, 

 trailing vines and slender leaves and it bears 

 racemos of small currant-like fruit. It occurred 

 to me that it would be highly interesting to hybrid- 

 ize this trailing plant with a particularly tall, 

 upright, compact variety of the common tomato. 



The cross was made reciprocally, pollen from 

 each plant being used to fertilize the stigma of the 

 other. 



The fertilization was effected without difficulty, 

 and an abundant supply of seed was produced. 

 The hybrids that grew in the next generation were 

 many of them pretty clearly intermediate in form 

 and appearance between the parents. But some 

 of them were almost ludicrous in appearance, 



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