LUTHER BURBANK 



We have seen that a tendency to variation is 

 everywhere introduced when different species or 

 varieties of plants are hybridized. And although 

 no conscious experiment in hybridization was 

 involved in the case of these potatoes — inasmuch 

 as I had no knowledge of the seedball until it was 

 in actual existence — ^yet it is clear that nature had 

 performed the experiment, and that I was enabled 

 to take advantage of the results of her experi- 

 menting. 



To be sure it is more than likely that the 

 seedball with which I worked was produced by 

 accidental fertilizing of the pistil from which it 

 grew by pollen from a neighboring plant; repre- 

 senting, therefore, the crossing of individuals of 

 the same variety and not a true hybridization of 

 different varieties; for all the potatoes in my 

 garden were of one kind — namely the Early 

 Rose. 



But the Early Rose potato is itself a crossbred 

 variety, I am not sure that its exact history is 

 known, but undoubtedly it is the product of the 

 crossing of some other varieties of potato. The 

 Early Rose was a seedling of the Early Goodrich, 

 a white potato named after its originator, a clergy- 

 man who had been carrying on experiments in 

 crossing the potato and raising seedlings. 



The crossing from which it originated occurred 



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