LUTHER BURBANK 



teristics but one. They were California poppies 

 in habits, in growth, in shape, in size, in form, in 

 grace, in texture, in beauty. 



Yet in color they differed from the California 

 wild poppy almost as a violet differs from a daisy. 



One of these freaks developed into the solid 

 crimson poppy, another into the pure white poppy, 

 and still another into the fire-flame poppy — all 

 shown here. 



The details of method employed and the 

 application of these methods and the underlying 

 principles to the improvement of other flowers, 

 fruits, trees and useful and ornamental plants, will 

 be left for later chapters. But as an illustration, 

 this poppy experiment brings home three things : 



First, that Nature creates no duplicates. 



Second, that although each of Nature's crea- 

 tions has its own distinctive individuality, all the 

 time she takes special precautions to fix, preserve, 

 and make permanent the characteristics of each 

 of her races or kinds. 



Third, that there is always present in all of 

 her creations the experimental tendency to break 

 away from fixed characteristics — to start new 

 races — to branch out into entirely new forms of 

 development. Through Mr. Burbank's interven- 

 tion, in the case of the poppy, this tendency was 

 crowned with success; in ten thousand years, 



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