LUTHER BURBANK 
much as we can that is useful and practical, of 
the single strand of life’s thread which has to do 
more immediately with the thing in hand. 
“What do you put in the soil to make your 
canna lilies so big?” 
“How often do you take up the bulbs of your 
gladioli?” 
“How late do you keep your strawberry plants 
under glass?” 
These, and a hundred others of their kind, are 
the questions which visitors at the experiment 
farm are continually asking Mr. Burbank. 
It is not that Mr. Burbank undervalues the care 
of plants, or does not appreciate the importance 
of cultivation. 
But his questioners fail to realize that his work 
has been with the insides of plants and not with 
their externals. 
Of the details of working method—of the little. 
tricks that save time—of Luther Burbank’s bold 
innovations which many gardeners may have 
dreamed, but none have ever dared to do—of 
these, in the volumes to come, we shall find plenty. 
Yet, we shall find ourselves, too, searching the 
times when things were not as they are, in order 
to get glimpses of things as they are to be—and all, 
not from the standpoint of theory, but merely to 
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