LUTHER BURBANK 



ferent species. We have seen that sugar content 

 is an all-important item in the case of the prune; 

 and that sweetness and flavor and color are mat- 

 ters of importance in the case of the cherry. We 

 have also seen with what relative ease varieties 

 may be developed that surpass their parent forms 

 in these regards. 



An interesting illustration of the possibility of 

 breeding new qualities into a fruit or accentuating 

 old ones, to which reference has not hitherto been 

 made, is manifested by one of njy new cherries, 

 which, through selective breeding, became so 

 sweet that its sugar content acts as a preservative, 

 quite as in the case of the sugar prune. 



These cherries, instead of decaying rapidly 

 after ripening, dry on the tree in a state of perfect 

 preservation. This particular featm-e is of no 

 present commercial value, but the case illustrates 

 the possibility of altering the inherent qualities 

 of a fruit, and of doing this in the course of a 

 few generations through systematic selection. 



The same thing is illustrated by another of my 

 cherries which, by careful attention to a combina- 

 tion of qualities that would ordinarily be quite 

 overlooked, had its stem so strongly anchored to 

 the stone that when the fruit is picked the flesh 

 tears away leaving stem and stone on the tree. 



Now it will be recalled that, in the case of the 



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