Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/377

Rh Burbank's own words, touching these matters that scientific men are particularly interested in, in his work:

All scientists have found that preconceived notions, dogmas, and all personal prejudice must be set aside, listening patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons one by one which mother nature has to teach, shedding light on that which before was a mystery, so that all who will may see and know.

Crossing gives the raiser of new plants the only means of uniting the best qualities of each, but just as often the worst qualities of each are combined and transmitted, so that to be of any value it must be followed by rigid and persistent selection, and in crossing, as in budding and grafting, the affinities can only be demonstrated by actual test.

All wild plants of any species are under almost identical environments, having their energies taxed to the utmost in the fierce struggle for existence. Any great variation under such circumstances is not likely to occur, and is much more likely to be stamped out at once by its struggling competitors, unless the variation should be of special use in competition, in which case it will survive, and all others may be supplanted by it. Thus we see how new species are often produced by nature, but this is not her only mode. Crosses and hybrids are very often found growing wild where two somewhat similar species grow contiguous, and if the combination happens to be a useful one,