GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 



to the future of the new plant and see in what 

 manner it is to fill out its new place in the 

 world among its fellows and amidst perhaps 

 radically different environments. These plants 

 are like children. To know them you must 

 know their ancestry ; and to know their ances- 

 try affords at least some hint of their future. 

 In a plant, this past, this heredity which Mr. 

 Burbank, more clearly than it was ever set 

 forth before, pronounces "the sum of all past 

 environments," is perhaps more fixed than that 

 of a child's past, because it has not had so many 

 obvious disturbances. It has not been subject 

 to the inconsistencies of human love and its 

 strange selections. This knowledge of the past 

 of the plant and this intimate study of its life 

 and the related life of other plants are among 

 the factors which help to give Mr. Burbank 

 the commanding place he holds in the world. 



When the past of the plant has been broken 

 up, then comes the turning of its life forces 

 into its new channels. Indeed, when we begin 

 to search for the secret of Mr. Burbank's 

 success, we find that it lies deep, and sweeps 

 forward with a powerful hold upon the very 

 sources of life itself. Perhaps the flower he is 



29 



