LUTHER BURBANK 



point of view would have been altered even to 

 this day had it not been for a conspicuous and 

 notable demonstration of the possibility of modi- 

 fying existing species of trees. 



The demonstration was made when I took 

 pollen from the flower of a Persian walnut and 

 transferred it to the pistils of the California black 

 walnut. 



Here were two species of trees so notably 

 different in form and shape of leaf and fruit and 

 color of wood that not even the most casual 

 observer could confound them. They were not 

 even natives of the same continent, and no botanist 

 would claim that they were as closely related as 

 are many species of forest trees that grow side by 

 side in our woodlands and maintain unchallenged 

 their specific identity. 



Yet when these two trees were cross-pollenized 

 they produced fertile nuts, and trees of a new 

 order grew from these fertile seeds. 



The barriers between these not very closely 

 related species were broken down, and a new type 

 of forest tree was produced that differed so mark- 

 edly from either parent that no one could con- 

 found it with either, and that excelled both in the 

 capacity for rapid growth so conspicuously as to 

 seem to belong not merely to a different species 

 but to an entirely different tribe of trees. 



[162] 



