314 DARWINISM TO-DAY. 



very much like the individual it was cut from, but the seeds will 

 not, in most cases, reproduce faithfully the parents, but will pro- 

 duce a very variable lot of individuals, most of them strongly 

 reversionary in character. Grow peach trees from the stones of 

 your favourite peach and see what manner of peaches you get ; 

 but if you want to be sure of more peaches like the ones you enjoy, 

 graft scions from your tree on to other trees. Indeed one of the 

 plant-breeder's favourite methods of making a start for new things, 

 of getting the requisite beginning wealth and eccentricity of varia- 

 tion, is to grow seedlings, especially from cross-bred varieties. 

 Burbank will give you a thousand dollars for a pinch of horseradish 

 seed. Sugar-cane seed is needed. The amelioration of many kinds 

 of fruit and flowers and vegetables is checked, because in our care- 

 lessness we have allowed these kinds to get into that condition of 

 .seedlessness which almost all cultivated races tend toward when 

 grown from cuttings. In our oranges and grape-fruit and in a score 

 of other fruits, the elimination of seeds is exactly one of the modifi- 

 cations we have bred and selected for, in order to make the fruits 

 less troublesome in their eating. But when we lose the seeds 

 entirely of a whole group of related plant kinds we may find our- 

 selves, as we have found ourselves actually in many cases, at the 

 end of our powers of amelioration of these plant sorts. Burbank 

 believes that the very fact that plants when grown asexually always 

 sooner or later lose their power to produce seeds is almost suffi- 

 cient proof (if such proof is needed) that acquired characters are 

 transmitted. 



"Another of Burbank's open secrets of success is the great range 

 of his experimentation nothing is too bold for him to attempt, 

 the chances of failure are never too great to frighten him. And 

 another secret is the great extent, as regards material used, of each 

 experiment. His beds of seedlings contain hundreds, often thou- 

 sands, of individuals where other men are content with hundreds. 

 Another element in his work is his prodigality of time. Experi- 

 ments begun twenty years ago are actually still under way. 



"In all that I have so far written, I have purposely kept to gen- 

 eral statements applicable to Burbank's work as a whole. My 

 readers might be more interested, perhaps, to have some illustra- 

 tions of the application of various processes of making new sorts 

 of things, some analytical account of the history of various specific 

 ''new creations,' but considerations of space practically forbid this. 

 Just a few briefly described examples must suffice. More than is 

 generally imagined, perhaps, Burbank uses pure selection to get 

 new things. From the famous golden orange coloured California 

 poppy (Escholtzia) he has produced a fixed new crimson form by 



