NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



rapidly increased. He sold at high prices. He 

 devoted more space to the plum. It yielded 

 him a handsome income, paid off a seven- 

 thousand - dollar mortgage, made him inde- 

 pendent. The late Cecil Rhodes heard of it. 

 He introduced it into South Africa, giving 

 it its chance to show what it could do on a 

 hundred acres. It gallantly accepted the test, 

 and from the hundred acres came a crop 

 worth one hundred thousand dollars each year 

 for several years. 



But not a cent, directly or indirectly, has 

 ever come to Mr. Burbank for this great plum, 

 and he found it difficult in those first days to 

 give it away. I fancy it would not be so 

 today. 



The new work as it progresses is steadily 

 emphasizing the total inadequacy of the Men- 

 delian "laws" (considered in the chapter on 

 Mr. Burbank's theories and conclusions) when 

 applied to actual breeding. The words which 

 follow from Mr. Burbank on this point are 

 particularly important because of the fact that 

 they come from a man who has had greater 

 opportunity, and on a larger scale, to study 

 new forms of plant-life and observe the mani- 



428 



