LUTHER BURBANK 



Before us is a world of living, onward-march- 

 ing plants — plants which have made, are making, 

 and will continue to make, their own rules as they 

 go along. Here, before us, too, is the propaganda 

 of our subject with its maps, plans, charts, rules, 

 laws, theories, beliefs, built up too fixedly, too 

 arbitrarily, too superficially, perhaps, but very 

 completely, nevertheless, around this onward- 

 marching mass. 



Let us use to the utmost all the help that science 

 can give; to save time, let us accept the laws and 

 the rules, let us have confidence in the maps and 

 the charts, until the plants themselves show our 

 error. 



Let us search, always, for stored up heredities 

 to convert to our use, just as we would seek stored 

 up diamonds, or gold, or coal, instead of trjdng, 

 by chemistry, to produce them. 



Let us realize, always, that everj'thing is 

 possible with time; but let us seek out all the 

 short-cuts we can. 



For, after all, we have so little of Time! 



***** 



With time as our limiting factor, then, we shall 

 find, in plant work, many things which we cannot 

 hope to accomplish. 



We shall find plants, of course, of different 

 species, and different genera — a surprising num- 



[2381 



