Practice of Plant Breeding 
and to love every kind of plant and of flower, but 
especially cactus’.* 
He migrated to California, where for many years he 
had a very hard struggle. Then he obtained an order 
for 20,000 young prune trees to be supplied within nine 
months. 
To raise a prune tree from seed requires at least 
two anda half years. But Burbank planted a/mond- 
seeds which, in that stimulating atmosphere, grow very 
rapidly, and budded 20,000 prune buds on to them as 
soon as they were large enough. To-day those 20,000 
prunes are said to form one of the finest orchards in 
California. 
The system upon which he seems to work does not 
apparently differ from those employed by others in any 
essential character, but his selections and his crossings 
are done upon a scale unprecedented in its magnitude. 
At the end of certain experiments he burnt in one of 
his bonfires no less than 65,000 two- and three-year-old 
berry bushes. His plums are grown by the mile, and 
his grafts and hybrids are made by the thousand. 
Then also he has an experience which is unrivalled, 
and a skill which can tell from the foliage of a plum 
whether its fruit will be worth keeping or not. The 
climate which he has selected is probably the best in 
the world, and land must be extraordinarily cheap. 
These advantages are possessed surely by no other 
plant-breeder. Moreover, he does not himself distribute 
and sell his creations. They are sold as soon as pro- 
duced to various American firms, whose skill and ex- 
perience in advertisement admit of no dispute, 
In this country we would very much like to obtain 
some at least of those creations of his. There is his 
* See Harwood, ‘‘ New Creations in Plant Life,” and De Vries, ‘‘ Plant- 
breeding,” for these and other details. 
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