GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 
to the future of the new plant and see in what 
manner it is to fill out its new place in the 
world among its fellows and amidst perhaps 
radically different environments. These plants 
are like children. To know them you must 
know their ancestry ; and to know their ances- 
try affords at least some hint of their future. 
In a plant, this past, this heredity which Mr. 
Burbank, more clearly than it has been set 
forth before, pronounces “the sum of all past 
environments,” is perhaps more fixed than that 
of achild’s past, because it has not had so many 
obvious disturbances. It has not been subject 
to the inconsistencies of human love and its 
strange selections. This knowledge of the past 
of the plant and this intimate study of its life 
and the related life of other plants are among 
the factors which help to give Mr. Burbank 
the commanding place he holds in the world. 
When the past of the plant has been broken 
up, then comes the turning of its life forces 
into its new channels. Indeed, when we begin 
to search for the secret of Mr. Burbank’s 
success, we find that it lies deep, and sweeps 
forward with a powerful hold upon the very 
sources of life itself. Perhaps the flower he is 
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