LUTHER BURBANK 



a long apprenticeship and tested the usual limits 

 of making new plant combinations, I was presently 

 able, like any other trained technician, to apply 

 the knowledge thus acquired toward far more 

 definite results than were at first possible. 



In the case of the Shasta daisy, the plans were 

 all laid out beforehand as to just what type of 

 flower I wished to produce. 



The ideal of a white blackberry was also, of 

 course, a perfectly precise and definite one. 



Obviously the scented calla, the stoneless plum, 

 the early bearing cherry, the sugar prune, and the 

 spineless cactus are other instances in which the 

 ideal pursued was as clearly conceived and as 

 definitely outlined in advance of my earliest 

 experiments as a cathedral is outlined in the 

 mind of the architect before he commences his 

 preliminary drawings. 



In one case as in the other the details may 

 be modified as the work progresses, but the 

 general idea of the structure aimed at — be it new 

 fruit or new building — ^must be conceived with a 

 good deal of definiteness from the outset. My 

 original conception of a new plant creation, in 

 the cases outlined and in a large number of others, 

 certainly bore as close a resemblance to the final 

 product achieved as the first rough drawing of the 

 architect bears to his finished plans. 



[12] 



