LUTHER BURBANK 



best heredity is dependent upon environment for 

 the bringing out of his inherent potentialities. 



As another extreme example might be cited the 

 case of the child who becomes blind and deaf in 

 infancy through some accident or disease. Such a 

 child will commonly remain at a stage of mental 

 culture comparable to that of a congenital idiot. 

 Exceptional cases like those of Laura Bridgman 

 and Miss Helen Keller, in which, through infinite 

 effort, the other senses are made in part to com- 

 pensate for the loss of sight and hearing, building 

 up the brain through vicarious channels, serve to 

 give further emphasis to the fact under considera- 

 tion the all-importance of the environing influ- 

 ences that we commonly speak of as "educational" 

 in completing the work which heredity carries 

 only to the nascent state of development. 

 THE MIXTURE OF RACES 



Yet another respect in which the problems of 

 breeding a better human race in our day run 

 parallel to the problems of the plant developer is 

 with reference to the foreign materials that make 

 up the stock for the propagation of future genera- 

 tions. 



It will be recalled that some of Mr. Burbank's 

 most important successes were achieved by blend- 

 ing the racial strains of plants brought from differ- 

 ent continents. Plants were imported from Japan, 



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