NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
many ages as to leave no further cause for 
even academic apprehension. 
It is of interest to note that, in the progress 
of these and other experiments, Mr. Burbank 
demonstrates the fallacy of another scientific 
statement. It has long been held that, under 
certain conditions, the progeny of a given 
plant union would be affected in a demon- 
strable way by one or the other of the parents, 
the parental life fixing itself in certain positive 
and indelible forms upon the child life. In 
the midst of vast experiments where he has 
had unrivaled opportunities for studying 
every phase of plant life, Mr. Burbank has 
again and again demonstrated that this power, 
prepotency as it is called, simply depends 
upon heredity and that there is no prepotency 
of male or female as such. Other things being 
equal, he says it may be set down as fixed 
that there is absolutely no balance in favor of 
either sex, as sex. Upon this point Mr. Bur- 
bank says: 
“In grafting, every conceivable stage of 
congeniality between stock and graft is found, 
from actual poisoning to refusal to unite; unit- 
ing and not growing; or growing for a short 
218 
