LUTHER BURBANK 



child all his life and whom therefore we term a 

 poet — that can sound the depths of a great subject 

 with a single phrase like that. 



"The plant with its heart on its sleeve." 



That is the strawberry. Cowering, timid, 

 nestling among the grasses, seeking obscure cor- 

 ners, retiring as far as it may from observation — 

 and wearing its heart on its sleeve ! 



The strawberry, it must be recalled, is own 

 cousin to the peach and plum, the apple and pear, 

 the rose, the blackberry, and the raspberry. But 

 where these raise their heads into the air and hold 

 out their flowers and fruit to the inspection of all 

 the world, the strawberry has ta^en to earth and 

 become a creeper. 



Yet whereas the other fruits shield their seed 

 always with pulp of the fruit, and some of them 

 even enclose it also in armor plate shells, the 

 strawberry puts its seed on the very outside of 

 the fruit, where they will inevitably be eaten by 

 any bird that so much as pecks at the fruit itself. 



Hence the pertinency of the little girl's charac- 

 terization. 



The Odd Custom Expl.\ined 



But, of course, there must be an adequate 

 reason for the curious conduct of the strawberry. 



A plant does not depart from the traditions of 

 its ancestors and take on new and strange cus- 



[74] 



