The Training of the Human Plant

THE TRAINING OF THE HUMAN PLANT

By Luther Burbank

Contents I. The Mingling of Races

II. The Teachings of Nature

III. Differentiation in Training

IV. Sunshine, Good Air and Nourishing Food

V. Dangers

VI. Marriage of the Physically Unfit

VII. Heredity - Predestination - Training

VIII. Growth

IX. Environment the Architect of Heredity

X. Character

XI. Fundamental Principles

Chapter 1 Excerpt DURING the course of many years of investigation into the plant life of the world, creating new forms, modifying old ones, adapting others to new conditions, and blending still others, I have constantly been impressed with the similarity between the organization and development of plant and human life. While I have never lost sight of the principle of the survival of the fittest and all that it implies as an explanation of the development and progress of plant life, I have come to find in the crossing of species and in selection, wisely directed, a great and powerful instrument for the transformation of the vegetable kingdom along lines that lead constantly upward. The crossing of species is to me paramount. Upon it, wisely directed and accompanied by a rigid selection of the best and as rigid an exclusion of the poorest, rests the hope of all progress. The mere crossing of species, unaccompanied by selection, wise supervision, intelligent care, and the utmost patience, is not likely to result in marked good, and may result in vast harm. Unorganized effort is often most vicious in its tendencies. Before passing to the consideration of the adaptation of the principles of plant culture and improvement in a more or less modified form to the human being, let me lay emphasis on the opportunity now presented in the United States for observing and, if we are wise, aiding in what I think it fair to say is the grandest opportunity ever presented of developing the finest race the world has ever known out of the vast mingling of races brought here by immigration. By statistical abstract on immigration, prepared by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor in Washington, I find, that, in the year 1904, 752,864 immigrants came into the United States, assigned to more than fifty distinct nationalities. It will be worth while to look carefully at this list. It shows how widely separated geographically, as well as ethnologically, is the material from which we are drawing in this colossal example of the crossing of species. . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices. This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making. We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.