NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
But a singular situation is suggested by the 
possibilities of this adaptation. One of the 
leading fruit-growers of northern California, 
an ardent admirer of Mr. Burbank and largely 
interested in the production of some of his 
new fruits, makes the point that, in spite of 
the great work Mr. Burbank has done and is 
doing, for the development of fruit-culture in 
California, the supremacy of California as a 
fruit - producing state is eventually to be 
threatened, because of the fact that Mr. Bur- 
bank is adapting so many of the fruits, now 
grown in California extensively, to other 
regions of the country. Thus, if he makes a 
pear so hardy that it will grow in a climate 
where pears have never been grown success- 
fully before, or in like manner hardens a 
peach, a prune, an apricot, a plum or a cherry, 
the fruit-growers of that region will be swift 
to adopt the new fruit. They will at once be 
given an immediate market; their customers 
will be delighted that they can get the choicest 
fruits at their very doors and filled with pride 
that their climate is no longer to be pro- 
nounced inimical to fruit-raising; while a new 
and profitable industry springs into life. 
204 
