Plant-breeding; comments on the experiments of Nilsson and Burbank . that of Crozy,and the ItaUan type with its orchid-shaped flowers. Bur-bank has improved these by the combination of their quali-ties with those of a native American species, Canna resulted the Burbank Canna, which soon found itsway into the gardens on account of its giant, orchid-hkeflowers. Its upper petals measure fully seven inches acrossand are of a rich canary yellow with carmine spots. Asecond hybrid of the same origin was the Tarrytown Canna,notable for the great abundance and richness in color of itsflow
Plant-breeding; comments on the experiments of Nilsson and Burbank . that of Crozy,and the ItaUan type with its orchid-shaped flowers. Bur-bank has improved these by the combination of their quali-ties with those of a native American species, Canna resulted the Burbank Canna, which soon found itsway into the gardens on account of its giant, orchid-hkeflowers. Its upper petals measure fully seven inches acrossand are of a rich canary yellow with carmine spots. Asecond hybrid of the same origin was the Tarrytown Canna,notable for the great abundance and richness in color of itsflower spikes. Many other instances could be adduced, since it is Bur-banks custom to extend his experiments over as manyspecies as he can possibly bring together in promisingvarieties or specimens. Unfortunately, the evidence whichis necessary to insure scientific value to the practical ex-periments is not always easily obtained. From a practicalpoint of \dew, there is no reason for pubhshing it, and whenit is given in catalogues or references, this is often done for. 202 PLANT-BREEDING the purpose of illustration only. The fruit-grower and theamateur cultivator of garden plants arc quite satisfied withthe visible qualities of their new varieties, and the questionas to their origin has, as a rule, but small interest for is to the personal kindness of Burbank that I am indebtedfor most of the details conrerning the scientific side of hiscultures, and, of course, my visits were too short to touchupon all the (juestions exciting a similar interest. It seems to me a fact of high scientific significance thatcombinations of characters can be obtained by crosses inalmost all the arljitrarily chosen directions or degrees, butthat new character-units are either never produced or atleast so rarely tliat an artificial origin is hardly beyond legiti-mate doubt. Concerning the combinations of characters,the investigators of the last decade have discovered dis-tinct laws which, however,
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