LUTHER BURBANK 



We have seen that a tendency to variation is 

 everywhere introduced when different species or 

 varieties of plants are hybridized. And although 

 no conscious experiment in hybridization was 

 involved in the case of these potatoes inasmuch 

 as I had no knowledge of the seedball until it was 

 in actual existence yet it is clear that nature had 

 performed the experiment, and that I was enabled 

 to take advantage of the results of her experi- 

 menting. 



To be sure it is more than likely that the 

 seedball with which I worked was produced by 

 accidental fertilizing of the pistil from which it 

 grew by pollen from a neighboring plant; repre- 

 senting, therefore, the crossing of individuals of 

 the same variety and not a true hybridization of 

 different varieties; for all the potatoes in my 

 garden were of one kind namely the Early 

 Rose. 



But the Early Rose potato is itself a crossbred 

 variety. I am not sure that its exact history is 

 known, but undoubtedly it is the product of the 

 crossing of some other varieties of potato. The 

 Early Rose was a seedling of the Early Goodrich, 

 a white potato named after its originator, a clergy- 

 man who had been carrying on experiments in 

 crossing the potato and raising seedlings. 



The crossing from which it originated occurred 



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