A BACKWARD GLANCE 
doubts which are likely to take possession of us 
at the outset. 
* * * * * 
It may be well, at this point, however, to 
take space to refer to the single question most 
frequently asked by thousands of intelligent men 
and women who have visited Mr. Burbank’s 
experiment farms. 
This question, differing in form, as the indi- 
vidualities of the questioners differ, usually runs 
like this: 
“If we are descendants of monkeys, why are 
not the monkeys turning into men today?” 
Let us learn Mr. Burbank’s answer to this 
question by turning to the golden-yellow California 
poppy, so called, and the three entirely new 
poppies (illustrated here in natural colors), which 
he produced from it. 
In order to make clear the truth which the 
poppies prove, it is necessary to explain the 
successive steps of the operation. 
Mr. Burbank first grew a yardful of the wild, 
golden-yellow poppies, such as cover California’s 
hills. 
The individual poppies of this yardful—a 
million of them, at a guess—resembled each other 
as closely as one rose resembles another rose on 
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