LUTHER BURBANK 



to detect, if you search carefully enough, one that 

 differs from its fellows in having at least a sugges- 

 tion of fragrance. And if you will work in the 

 right way with this individual, you will probably 

 be able to produce a race of perfumed flowers — 

 supplying you, therefore, with a flower different 

 from anything in the garden of your neighbor, and 

 adding the finishing touch to a blossom which, 

 however attractive otherwise, could not be consid- 

 ered perfect so long as it lacked this finishing 

 quality. 



In an earlier volume we have heard the story 

 of the fragrant Calla. 



The reader will recall that this anomalous vari- 

 ety, known now as the Fragrance, was developed 

 by simple selection, along the lines just illustrated 

 in the case of the little heuchera, with the differ- 

 ence merely that the characteristic borne con- 

 stantly in mind was fragrance of the Calla blos- 

 som instead of a peculiar conformation of leaf. 



By "line-breeding" and careful selection, I was 

 enabled in a few generations to isolate a calla that 

 has delicious fragrance while retaining all the 

 other qualities of the flower unchanged. 



The seedlings of this selected calla are not in- 

 variably fragrant. By careful inbreeding the fra- 

 grant calla could without doubt be made to breed 

 true to the quality of fragrance. In the particular 



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