How Far Can Plant 

 Improvement Go? 



The Crossroads — Where Fact 

 AND Theory Seem to Part 



WHEN I first began this work," said 

 Mr. Burbank, "I was taught that a 

 combination between two varieties of 

 the same species v.'as possible — that I might cross 

 one plum with another plum, for example, to get 

 a new variety — but that the species marked the 

 definite boundarj^ within which I might work. 

 The science of that day was firm in its belief that 

 a seed-bearing, self-reproductive cross between 

 plants of different species was beyond the pale of 

 possibility. 



"A little later on, when I succeeded in com- 

 bining the plum with the apricot, and produced, 

 thereby, a new fruit whose parents were of 

 undeniably different species, the law, or rule, was 

 moved up a peg; and I was told that while it 

 might be possible to effect combinations between 

 different species, yet that must be the limit of 



[Volume I — Chapter VII] 



