THE NEW OPUNTIAS 



bewildering, and always the wonder grows 

 that order may at last be brought out of such 

 seeming chaos. 



In these tests, Mr. Burbank discards abso- 

 lutely all antiquated notions, like that, for 

 example, which provides for tissue paper bags 

 to encase newly pollenated flowers, proceeding 

 upon exceedingly simple, sane, and effective 

 lines. He lays particular stress upon this in 

 his cactus breeding, noting that it is not only 

 wholly unnecessary to put a flower in a pocket 

 at a most critical time in its life, but that it is 

 positively harmful to the flower, preventing 

 its fullest and most satisfactory development. 

 He says there will be no question as to results, 

 practical or scientific, if the person who does 

 the pollenating knows his business : this being 

 granted, nature will take care of the rest. 



Following the pollenating come the culture 

 and care of the plants until seed-growing is 

 accomplished; then new seeds must be 

 planted, new flowers must blossom, new 

 crosses must be made. 



But correlated in importance with all this 

 is selection. There must be a constant scru- 

 tiny of the new plants as they come along in 



381 



