LUTHER BURBANK 
The reader has already learned details of the 
history of this Paradox walnut, and we shall have 
something more to say of it in connection with a 
further interpretation of the laws of heredity, in 
a subsequent chapter. 
Here I refer to it only in connection with the 
demonstration it gave of the possibility that new 
types of forest trees might be developed by hybrid- 
ization and selection, quite as had been claimed in 
the comment that aroused such skeptical and even 
sarcastic response from the professional forester. 
But, as I said, after this demonstration had 
been made, it was no longer possible even for the 
hidebound conservatist to deny the possibility that 
forest trees, like other plants, are somewhat plastic 
materials in the hands of the plant developer. 
And in course of time it came to be recognized 
—though even now the knowledge has scarcely 
been acted on—that the new idea given by obser- 
vation of the Paradox walnut could be utilized for 
the practical purpose of supplying us timber trees 
that might be expected to re-stock our woodland 
in a fraction of the time that would be required for 
the growing of trees of unmodified wild species. 
The row of Paradox walnut trees which at 
fifteen years of age were two feet in diameter and 
towered as beautiful and symmetrical trees to the 
height of sixty feet, standing just across the street 
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