FOR THE HOME BEAUTIFUL 11 



names have been forgotten, but the fruits of their 

 work live endlessly on after them as a perpetual 

 monument to their success. 



And all this but leads' down to the real thought 

 back of this chapter; of those men and women, 

 whoever they are, and wherever they may have 

 lived, who have observed, studied and carried on 

 a labor of love to bring forth on the face of the 

 earth, improvements in the plant life, and the 

 fruits of which labor have been an enormous 

 measure of success. 



Man has here been using the faculties given him, 

 and through his> patience and skill, the remark- 

 able changes that have been brought about have 

 been possible through the processes of hybridizing, 

 by selecting and reselecting, budding and grafting, 

 and gradually has come forth t)he comparative 

 perfection of plant life as we know it today. 



As instances; the Dahlia is one of our most 

 gorgeous and sought after garden flowers; truly 

 immense in size, of great brilliancy and multi- 

 plicity of colorings, and in a variety of forms, 

 and it has been less than a century and a half 

 since the first wild dahlias were discovered in the 

 wild and mountainous regions of Mexico. 



Likewise the Gladiolus is now one of our most 

 gorgeous and popular of flowers for cutting, and 

 it too has sprung into its present high state from 

 an obscure beginning, coming in its wild form 



