LUTHER BURBANK 



flower from white to yellow. How shall we go 

 about it? 



First of all, we must produce thousands of 

 seedlings from our white flower. Let them blos- 

 som, and then search among them with the keen- 

 est eye to detect a trace of yellow color — ^which 

 is found more or less in all white flowers — ^in the 

 flowers of any single plant. 



You are almost certain, if your scrutiny is suffi- 

 ciently keen, to detect some plant that varies an 

 infinitesimal shade from its fellows, showing at 

 least a trace of yellow; for a really pure white is 

 extremely rare in Nature. 



Select the seed of this plant; sow it next season; 

 and repeat the process of searching. 



You will almost certainly be rewarded, if not 

 in the first season, then in the second or third or 

 fourth, by finding flowers that show very much 

 more marked traces of yellow than the original 

 flower. And even if the variation is not very strik- 

 ing at first, you will probably find that it tends to 

 be accentuated after a few generations, especially 

 in certain individuals. Each year you will dis- 

 cover flowers that are yellower than any of the 

 preceding season; and presently you will have a 

 blossom that is as yellow as you could desire, and 

 a new race of plants that will breed true from 

 seed. Placed side by side with the white flowers 



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