LUTHER BURBANK 



perhaps, without intervention at all, the same 

 result might have been attained. 



From the fern at the water's edge, to the apple 

 tree which bears us luscious fruit — from the oyster 

 that lies helpless in the bottom of Long Island 

 Sound, to the human being who rakes it up, and 

 eats it — every different form of life about us may, 

 thus, be traced to the experiments which Nature 

 is continually tr^dng, in order to improve her 

 creations. 



As to the question so often asked, monkeys are 

 no more turning into men than golden-yellow 

 poppies are turning into crimson, white or fire- 

 flame poppies. 



In monkeys, as in men and poppies — and quartz 

 crystals — there is ever present the tendency to 

 break away from the kind, yet Nature is always 

 alert to prevent the break — unless it demonstrates 

 itself to be an advance, an improvement — from 

 occurring. 



She gives us, all of us, and everj^thing — 

 individuality, personality — unfailingly, always — at 

 the same time preserving in each the general 

 characteristics of its kind. 



Yet all the time she is creating her freaks 

 and "sports" — all the time she is tn,dng new 

 experiments — most of them doomed to die unpro- 

 ductive — with the hope that the thousand freaks 



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