LUTHER BURBANK 
many other trees and plants of various kinds. But 
I recall that the variations among the chestnuts, 
and also among hickories and shell-barks, made a 
very vivid impression on my mind. It seemed 
strange that trees obviously of the same kind 
should show such diversity as to their fruit. 
When, at a later period, I began my experi- 
ments in California, I recalled the variable chest- 
nuts, and it occurred to me that a plant showing 
such inherent tendency to vary should afford an 
unusual opportunity for development—for by this 
time I had come to appreciate the value of varia- 
tion as the foundation for the operations of the 
plant experimenter. 
But I had conceived the idea also—as our 
earlier studies have shown—that there would be 
very great advantage in hybridizing the best 
native species of plants with plants of foreign 
origin. And I had the chestnuts in mind among 
others when I sent to Japan and Italy and the east- 
ern states for new plants with which to operate. 
So the very first lot of plants that came to me from 
Japan (in November, 1884), included twenty-five 
nuts that I find listed in a memorandum as “mon- 
ster” chestnuts. The same shipment, it may be of 
interest to recall, included loquats and persim- 
mons with which some interesting experiments 
were made; pears, peaches, and plums of which 
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