LUTHER BURBANK 



universal a New England heritage as the Puritan 

 conscience itself, and because I knew that my rel- 

 atives, in common with such other people as knew 

 of my project, were skeptical as to the practicality 

 of such experiments in plant development as were 

 contemplated. 



Such skepticism was natural enough on the 

 part of practical men, for the things that I hoped 

 to do ran counter to all common experience. To 

 think of changing the form and constitution of liv- 

 ing things in a few years seemed grotesque even 

 to many people who believed in the general doc- 

 trine of evolution. 



It was not generally admitted at that time that 

 the plants under cultivation had been conspicu- 

 ously modified by the efforts of man. 



And even those exceptional botanists who 

 believed that the cultivated plants owed their 

 present form to man's efforts were prone to 

 emphasize the fact that the plants had been for 

 centuries under cultivation, and to question 

 whether the modifications that could be effected 

 in a single generation would have any practical 

 significance. 



So it seemed to most people who knew of my 

 enterprise that it was a half-mad project and one 

 that was foredoomed to failure. 



Of course I had only enthusiasm, backed by 



[74] 



