LUTHER BURBANK 
And, figures aside, the essential principle of the 
segregation of characters, and their redistribution 
into three essential groups, one representing each 
parent, and one combined as in the first generation 
hybrid, is as clearly stated as can be desired. 
The interest of all this hinges solely on the fact 
that the statement was published in 1898, based 
obviously on observations made prior to that date; 
at a time, therefore, when no one living had the 
remotest knowledge of the discovery made by 
Mendel more than thirty years before. Mendel 
himself died in 1884, and the rediscovery of his 
work was not made until a year or two after the 
date of my catalog, just quoted. 
And I may fairly assume, I believe, that there 
were few, if any, botanists or plant developers in 
the world, at the date of this publication, who had 
any such clear conception of the meaning and 
interpretation of the prediction contained in the 
quoted paragraph as my own original observa- 
tions had given me. 
In point of fact, the observation on the seeds 
of the Paradox walnut, as here quoted, was made 
quite casually. 
I did not put it forward as constituting a new 
pronouncement in heredity, because it simply rep- 
resented a specific application of a general truth 
regarding the tendency of heritable characters to 
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