Luther Burbank

"No one at all understands why it is possible for the plant cell that bears within its substance one of these green bodies to combine certain inorganic elements into nutritious foods, a feat that no hu…"

"Nature has time without limit, but man has immediate need for better and still better food, houses and clothing, and our present state of civilization depends largely upon the improvements of plants a…"

"The essential basis of life itself, namely,, is a substance composed largely of water and having the physical constitution of a viscid liquid."

"Sex is not a necessary attribute of all living things.. a most necessary attribute if progress in evolution of new forms is to occur, as they have progressed through the ages and as we now see them pr…"

"It is increasingly necessary to impress the fact that there are two distinct lines in the improvement of any race: the environment which brings individuals up to their best possibilities; the other, t…"

"A knowledge of Mendelism is recognized by me as only the ABC to the broader knowledge of heredity necessary for success in animal and plant improvement, and all variations and all mutations of every n…"

"Here appears a child plainly not normal, what shall we do with him? Shall we, as some have advocated, even from Spartan days, hold that the weaklings should be destroyed? No. In cultivating plant life…"

"Power to vary in plants or animals is itself a feature as readily transmissible as is stability of character. The quality of varying to meet varying environments is therefore one of the hereditary tra…"