2i 4 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



silence has remained unbroken for unnumbered centuries is 

 extremely stimulating to the imagination. 



But this is by no means all of the promise that is bound up 

 in this new creation. It has during the process of its develop- 

 ment acquired an exceptional hardihood, so that it may now 

 be grown in almost any climate from the tropics to the north- 

 ern limits of plant life. It is not only a vigorous and hardy 

 grower, but a ready one as well. No drouth will affect it, 

 no freeze will kill it, and on this account it may come to take 

 its place on the farm as a kind of insurance crop a crop 

 always sure, no matter what else may fail. A leaf of it stuck 

 into the ground will grow ; either end may be planted, the 

 effect is the same a vigorous sprouting. A leaf carelessly 

 thrown upon the ground will indeed dry out in the sun, 

 but in due time it will be found to have taken root neverthe- 

 less. All it asks is that it may be permitted to come in con- 

 tact with the soil. It will grow either from the sprout or 

 seed. After a thorough investigation of the economic possi- 

 bilities, of this cactus, Mr. Burbank was paid $1,000 a leaf 

 for it, the intention of the purchasers being to transplant it in 

 one of the semi-arid sections of Australia. 



Now, it may be asked, how are these new creations in agri- 

 culture effected? Not by the wizard's wand nor the exercise 

 of occult powers, as we are w,ont to say in figures of speech 

 to express the wonderful, but by the patient, persistent, in- 

 telligent handling of material factors in such a manner as to 

 permit the ever-present and universal forces of Nature freely 

 to operate. No new laws are brought into being, but facili- 

 ties are offered for new manifestations of those laws which 

 have ever been. It is as if a man should speak into a tele- 

 phone and be unable to make himself heard, and, listening 



