180 GARDENING WITH BRAINS 



youthful health and vigor he has preserved into 

 his seventies, for reasons I have previously 

 referred to. In a delightful little book for 

 children, Stories of Luther Burbank and His 

 Plant School, by Effie Young Slusser, Mary 

 Belle Williams, and Emma Burbank Beeson 

 (Scribners), there is a page which vividly 

 describes his enjoyment of his new creations in 

 color and fragrance. He spent a quarter of a 

 century in experimenting with lilies of all kinds, 

 from all parts of the world. Two hundred and 

 fifty thousand of them there were, covering 

 two acres near Sebastopol, out of which he 

 selected fifty that came up to his ideal. 



"In June, when the blossoming season came, 

 rare mingling of perfumes filled the air thou- 

 sands of odors blended into one. Nothing like 

 it had ever been known before in the whole 

 world. The people of the Gold Ridge section 

 wondered and wondered what it could be, and 

 they came from all around to investigate the 

 causes. As they came nearer and nearer, such 

 a mass of beautiful colors spread out before 

 them as they had never before even dreamed of 

 When they came close the lilies nodded and 

 nodded and swung their censers, bidding them 

 behold their exquisite colorings and quaint 

 forms, for nothing in the world could compare 

 with them." Some of them were "proud of 

 their fragrant white dress"; others relied more 

 on their shape and colors. "A few bore as many 



