David Starr Jordan 



fully agree with Burbank. In his field of the 

 application of our knowledge of heredity, selec- 

 tion, and crossing to the development of plants, 

 he stands unique in the world. No one else, 

 whatever his appliances, has done as much as 

 Burbank, or disclosed as much of the laws govern- 

 ing these phenomena. Burbank has worked for 

 years alone, not understood and not appreciated, 

 at a constant financial loss, and for this reason — 

 that his instincts and purposes are essentially those 

 of a scientific man, not of a nurseryman or even 

 of a horticulturist. To have tried fewer experi- 

 ments and all of a kind likely to prove economi- 

 cally valuable, and finally to have exploited these 

 as a nurseryman, would have brought him more 

 money. In his own way, Burbank belongs in the 

 class of Faraday and the long array of self-taught 

 great men who lived while the universities were 

 spending their strength on fine points of grammar 

 and hazy conceptions of philosophy. 'His work 

 is already an inspiration to botanists as well as 

 horticulturists, opening a new line of search in 



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