GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 
pressing forward in a million similar ways, 
«toward the same end. And out of the million 
“she saves perhaps i the last sifting but one, 
and that one the best of all. 
~ Running through all the work is the con- 
stant effort to break up old habits of life. Mr. 
. Burbank sees two plants of the same, or it may 
“be widely differing, species. He sees that 
neither one is living up to its opportunities. 
For one reason or another they have been 
slowly going down in the scale, possibly for 
centuries; or else it may be they have been 
as slowly going upward from some poorer 
estate and have not had sufficient help. He 
knows that back of each one of these plants 
lies a long and varied history, full of incidents, 
replete in experiences as strange in their way 
and as subtle as any which come to man. 
This past of the plant has produced the plant 
of today—tomorrow it must be changed. 
Just as into the life of a man long inured to 
bad habits, the son of evil parents, tracing his 
lineage backward through a century of sin, 
Just as there must come into this life some 
tremendous shock, be it a death, a terror, a 
great love or an overpowering hate, completely 
27 
