THE NEW WORK 



important work. Though it will not be pri- 

 marily prepared for the general reader, it must 

 yet appeal to him, while its value as a prac- 

 tical and scientific record of plant-life cannot 

 be estimated. 



In a certain definite sense, Mr. Burbank's 

 work is never done. He completes as far as 

 possible, we will say, a plum. It has reached 

 the very highest point to which, at the pres- 

 ent, at least, for lack of time he has been able 

 to advance it, — in form, color, size, taste, rich- 

 ness, shipping qualities and so on. And yet 

 the very next year this plum may be super- 

 seded, or, at least, excelled, in some one par- 

 ticular point, by another plum which has been 

 working its way up steadily through the years 

 under the same guiding hand. So, year by 

 year, new tests in plums are culminating, and 

 so large has been the preparatory stage that 

 greater results are now promised than at any 

 other time in the history of the work. Each 

 year, too, tens of thousands are being discarded 

 because not superior to those now existing. It 

 is Mr. Burbank's aim constantly to seek a 

 higher plane. To him it matters not that a 

 plant develops what might be termed spectac- 



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