LUTHER BURBANK 



"Much as these plants look alike, they bear 

 witness to the fact that they have within them two 

 entirely different strains of heredity. 



"The acacia will permit us to touch it and 

 handle it without showing signs of disturbance. 



"But its cousin, in the same soil, and of the 

 same size, immediately folds up its leaves, in self 

 protection, at the slightest touch. 



"From this we read the fact that one branch 

 of this family has found it necessary to perfect a 

 form of self defense, while the other has had no 

 such experience in its life history." 

 ***** 



"I have been much interested lately in an 

 experiment with common clover — in producing 

 clover leaves with wonderful markings. 



"The only way in which I can account for the 

 markings with which some clover leaves will 

 bedeck themselves is that, in the heredity of the 

 plant, there was a time when, not being poisonous 

 itself, it tried to simulate the appearance of some 

 poisonous plant, to protect itself from insects. 



"At first thought, it might require a stretch of 

 the imagination to understand how this could 

 be — yet a closer inquiry shows that the process 

 was as gradual and as surely progressive as the 

 transformation of the cactus. 



"In clover, as in other plants, there has always 



[46] 



