LUTHER BURBANK 



tion be pronounced new species by any competent 

 botanist were they discovered in the wild state, or 

 were their precise manner of origin unknown. 



But mere novelty by no means fully explained 

 the interest of the orchardist in the new products. 

 In addition to novelty the hybrid fruits and flowers 

 had qualities of excellence that gave them instant 

 appeal. 



The resources of the now familiar method of 

 half-tone illustration, at that time quite new, had 

 been utilized to show the exact appearance of the 

 new fruits and flowers, and so far as possible the 

 reproductions were made of exact life size, in a 

 good many cases one or both of the parent forms 

 being reproduced beside their hybrid offspring, to 

 point the contrast. 



It required but a glance at the pictures of the 

 new hybrid prunes and plums, blackberries and 

 raspberries, roses and gladioli, nicotianas and to- 

 matoes, to convince the skeptical that these were 

 products calculated to appeal to the most prac- 

 tical growers. 



The full force of this will be evident if we re- 

 call that this first announcement pictured and de- 

 scribed such fruits as the hybrid prune that was 

 afterward named the Splendor; the hybrid plum 

 named Perfection, afterward famous as the Wick- 

 son; the dewberry-raspberry hybrid known every- 



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