NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
He would welcome, with the eagerness 
of any lover of truth, any confirmation of 
law, for his wholé life is pledged to law. 
He had no ulterior purpose in disproving 
the Mendelian laws: in point of fact, he 
had disproved them over and over again 
years before he knew they existed. 
Mr. Burbank, in another instance, has 
brought to light the absurdity of reasoning 
from inadequate data. Leading scientists 
have maintained, and their followers have 
added the weight of their evidence, that 
“acquired characteristics are never trans- 
mitted.” In the limitless fields of operation 
before him, Mr. Burbank has not only 
disproven this over and over again, but 
has established the opposite, that acquired 
characteristics are the only ones that are 
transmitted. 
Another theory, now widely accepted by 
scientific men, the theory of mutation, or 
saltation, new forms of life being produced 
by springing from the parents by a sudden 
leap or bound, evolution thus going on by 
rare and sudden leaps, appears to have been 
overthrown by Mr. Burbank. Instead of 
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