2 
How to Judge Novelties 
tion of fruit depends upon the most delicate adjustments of soil and climate and 
locality, and that certain varieties which are a success in one locality may be, 
and often are, a complete failure a few miles distant; or nearby on a different 
soil or at a different elevation. 
NO ONE VARIETY OF FRUIT CAN BE GROWN EVERY- 
WHERE. THIS FACT SEEMS TOO PLAIN EVEN TO BE MEN- 
TIONED. 
From having made a life study of these conditions, and having pro- 
duced several millions of new fruits, using in this constructive architectural 
work nearly or quite four hundred species and tens of thousands of varieties, 
all in the constant effort to eliminate faults and substitute virtues, these 
observations have been most deeply impressed, and all intelligent, pro- 
gressive fruit growers are now aware of some of the benefits conferred by 
this enormously expensive work, a work such as no man or body of men, 
community or even government has ever undertaken, much less carried to a 
successful issue. 
Nearly two hundred and forty thousand dollars of my own private earn- 
ings in other lines have been used in this work, not one-tenth of which has 
ever been received in return, nor was it expected, as few originators of 
new plants have ever made it pay themselves no matter how many untold 
millions their work may have been of benefit to others. No patent can be 
obtained on any improvement of plants, and for one I am glad that it is 
so. The reward is in the joy of having done good work, and the impotent 
envy and jealousy of those who know nothing of the labor and sacrifices 
necessary, and who are by nature and cultivation, kickers rather than lifters. 
Happening however to be endowed with a fair business capacity I 
have so far never been stranded as have most others who have attempted 
similar work, even on an almost infinitely smaller scale. 
It takes nearly as long and is far more difficult to adapt the average 
grower of fruits to the priceless qualities, characters and values of a new 
and unique fruit than to adapt a new fruit to the real wants of the grower. 
These facts have both a ludicrous and a pathetic interest; it must necessarily 
take four or five years to fairly test new fruits in a warm climate, and 
sometimes ten in a more inhospitable one, and where fruits arc not as well 
known and extensively grown. 
The BURBANK PLUM when first introduced was, by dealers and 
shippers, canners and dryers, generally pronounced as "not like other plums," 
and they would have none of it ; but although generally introduced less than 
twenty years ago it is perhaps to-day more widely known, more thoroughly 
cosmopolitan, and more generally grown than any other plum of any name 
or kind produced either by nature or by the scientific experiments of man 
since the dawn of history; growing both where other plums can and where 
they cannot be grown, thriving well in Canada or Brazil, Japan or Africa, 
Borneo or Argentina, Russia or New Zealand. Hundreds of better plums 
