LUTHER BURBANK 



And, figures aside, the essential principle of the 

 segregation of characters, and their redistribution 

 into three essential groups, one representing each 

 parent, and one combined as in the first generation 

 hybrid, is as clearly stated as can be desired. 



The interest of all this hinges solely on the fact 

 that the statement was published in 1898, based 

 obviously on observations made prior to that date; 

 at a time, therefore, when no one living had the 

 remotest knowledge of the discovery made by 

 Mendel more than thirty years before. Mendel 

 himself died in 1884, and the rediscovery of his 

 work was not made until a year or two after the 

 date of my catalog, just quoted. 



And I may fairly assume, I believe, that there 

 were few, if any, botanists or plant developers in 

 the world, at the date of this publication, who had 

 any such clear conception of the meaning and 

 interpretation of the prediction contained in the 

 quoted paragraph as my own original observa- 

 tions had given me. 



In point of fact, the observation on the seeds 

 of the Paradox walnut, as here quoted, was made 

 quite casually. 



I did not put it forward as constituting a new 

 pronouncement in heredity, because it simply rep- 

 resented a specific application of a general truth 

 regarding the tendency of heritable characters to 



[196] 



