LUTHER BURBANK 



others that combine the quality of the two fruits. 

 The best of these bear fruits that are obviously 

 peaches, even peaches of fair qualities, yet that 

 have at their center what would be at once recog- 

 nized as an almond nut, with characteristic shell 

 and seed. 



In a word, these are almonds grown inside the 

 peach a combination of obvious interest. 



But this anomalous fruit, notwithstanding its 

 interest, did not present commercial possibilities 

 that could at the moment be realized. The peaches 

 that thus bear almonds are not of the best quality 

 as compared with recognized varieties of commer- 

 cial peaches. Neither, on the other hand, were the 

 almonds borne by these peaches of a quality to 

 enable them to compete in the market with the 

 best varieties of commercial almonds. 



What had been produced, in a word, was a 

 rather inferior peach bearing at its core a rather 

 inferior almond. The combination has obvious 

 scientific interest, but it has no immediate com- 

 mercial value. 



There is no reason to doubt that a continuance 

 of the experiment in which selection was made 

 among the best specimens of this hybrid fruit, 

 together with further hybridization in which the 

 strains of the best peaches and the best almonds 

 were successively introduced, might result in pro- 



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