NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
dipped in a weak solution of lye, in order to 
thin and crack the skin, to enable the mois- 
ture easily to escape when the drying process 
comes, thus preventing fermentation. After 
they are dipped they are placed in the sun to 
dry or, in regions where there is not sufficient 
sunshine, in machine driers. Some prunes have 
so thick a skin that they require far too much 
lye treatment, some are so thin that they 
burst open under the treatment and are thus 
destroyed for regular prune packing. Mr. 
Burbank has obviated this difficulty by breed- 
ing a prune with a skin so delicately veined 
and so susceptible to the solution that it needs 
but a trifling dipping to crack in fine thread- 
like lines and thus permit the escape of the 
moisture. This new prune, by thus having 
its skin bred to precisely the right thickness, 
must supplant other prunes, either too thick 
or too thin or too variable. 
The extension of this line of Mr. Burbank’s 
work is practically limitless. DeVries, the 
Dutch botanist elsewhere referred to, com- 
menting upon the extensive work of Mr, 
Burbank, says: 
“Specialization with him is not the limit- 
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