LUTHER BURBANK 



already seen, shipments of plants from Japan 

 began to be received even before the Sebastopol 

 farm was purchased. 



Material from Abroad 



The year following the purchase of the farm, 

 grafts of twelve varieties of New Zealand apples 

 were imported. And from this time forward I was 

 constantly in receipt of shipments of seeds or bulbs 

 or cions of rare or interesting plants from all 

 regions of the world. 



Association was established with foreign col- 

 lectors who made a business of securing plants. 

 And as the work became known in the course of 

 succeeding years, amateur collectors everywhere 

 were kind enough to send me materials, so that the 

 experiment gardens became a testing ground for 

 seeds of many thousands of species that doubtless 

 had never before been grown in America. 



Much of this is already known to the reader of 

 the early chapters of this work, but the facts are 

 emphasized anew because an understanding of 

 them is essential to the comprehension of the work 

 that was being carried forward. 



The very essence of the new method was to 

 bring together, through hybridization, plant strains 

 that had been long separated, making possible the 

 recombination of hereditary factors in such a way 

 as to bring out submerged racial traits. 



[120] 



