LUTHER BURBANK 



gence, has devoted himself to a single phase, at 

 least, of a complex subject. 



But we must remember that the theories, mo»t 

 of them, are built around dead plants. 



While the facts we are to use are to be gathered 

 from living ones. 



So, every once in a while, when we come to a 

 crossroads where that kind of theory and this kind 

 of fact seem to part, let us stick to the thing which 

 the living plant tells us, and assume that evolution, 

 or improvement, or progress, or whatever we 

 choose to call it, has stolen another lap on the 

 plant historians. 



And let us remember that the fact that ours is 

 not an exact science, with fixed answers to its 

 problems, is more than made up for by the 

 compensating fact that there seems to be no limit 

 to the perfection to which plant achievements maj^ 

 be carried — no impassable barrier, apparently 

 (save time — which limits us all, in everj'^thing), 

 beyond which our experiments may not go. 



— Nature did not make 

 the laws; she limits her- 

 self to no grooves; she 

 travels to no set schedule. 



