Personality of plants

PLANTS AND MEN
make almost unbelievable changes in floral and
vegetable form and structure. There has been
much experimentation of recent years in con-
nection with the effect of light, both natural
and artificial, on plant processes. In general,
it has been established that it is just as injurious
for a plant to have too much light as too little.
Steady exposure to light makes for accelerated
growth of tissue. Lessening light speeds up
flowering and reproduction. Control over a
plant's light supply therefore means that the
manipulator can produce at will either large,
luxuriantly foliaged plants which flower late,
or from the same seed develop small specimens
blooming exceptionally early.
Man is not content with merely controlling
the external conditions which affect vegetation
but often steps into their internal processes and
moulds their life-forces at their very fountain-
head. By the simple methods of selection and
cross-breeding, he is able to work miracles with
the laws of heredity, and bridge in a few years
gaps which a plant would have taken centuries
to span by ordinary evolutionary processes.
Luther Burbank is the modern garden
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