LUTHER BURBANK 



solicitude came the document from Santa Rosa, 

 ostensibly only a nursery catalog, but conveying a 

 message that made itself heard far beyond the 

 province of the nurseryman. 



Here were presented brief descriptions and 

 photographic illustrations of a large number of 

 new forms of plant life. These new forms were in 

 many cases so strikingly different from the old 

 ones that the least informed man in the street 

 could not fail to note their diversity. Some of 

 them obviously differed as strikingly from their 

 parent forms, to all casual inspection, as recog- 

 nized species hitherto familiar differed from one 

 another. 



In a word, here were illustrations of what ap- 

 peared to be new species of plants, and these ap- 

 parently new species were of known origin. They 

 had been developed under the hand of the experi- 

 menter through the hybridization of old species, 

 followed by artificial selection of a character hav- 

 ing obvious affinity with the operation of natural 

 selection on plants in the state of nature. 



Otherwise stated, the Santa Rosa catalog 

 appeared to tell of the creation of new species, by 

 artificial selection, in an experiment garden, in a 

 brief term of years. 



All details aside, the photographic pictures 

 showed offspring that seemed to be conspicuously 



[170] 



