NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



successive generations. Crosses must be made 

 with allied and widely separated species; 

 crosses with those most intimately related; 

 crosses between different varieties of each spe- 

 cies, a very close and intimate in-breeding, so 

 to call it, but selection must at the same time 

 be rigidly practiced, or the test will utterly 

 fail. Over six hundred varieties and over sev- 

 enty-five species have been used in the prose- 

 cution of this test covering the twelve-year 

 period it has been in progress, always with 

 two elemental needs before the mind: — first, 

 so to blend these plants having diverse and 

 similar attributes that they may be able to 

 rid themselves of their old wild ways and of 

 their old imperfections ; second, to build up a 

 race of new plants, hardy, prolific, thornless, 

 nutritious, of help to the race. 



All this has constantly been before Mr. 

 Burbank's mind in carrying forward this, in 

 many ways, the greatest act of his life. Out of 

 the wild, barbaric chaos of a plant life arrayed 

 for centuries, indeed for how many milleniums 

 we do not know, as a distinct foe to all animal 

 fife, he has brought a fine and beautiful order. 

 From one plant he has taken strength, from 



