% A DREAM OF NEW POPPIES 145 



the Rev. W. Wilks, discovered in 1880 a com- 

 mon red field, or com, poppy which had a narrow 

 edge of white. This he developed by selection 

 till he had a white poppy, eliminating also the 

 black central portion. Like everybody else, 

 Burbank admired this novelty — so much so 

 that he undertook to make the flowers larger, 

 more beautiful in shape, finer in texture, and 

 much more varied and delicate in color. He 

 chose the flowers that showed the lighter shades 

 of scarlet, crimson, pink, and white. 



After years of experimenting on a large scale, 

 with the aid of five assistants, he produced, 

 among others, a strain of Shirleys of salmon or 

 deep yellowish-pink color, which were intro- 

 duced as the "Sunset Shades." More remarkable 

 was the Celeste, which, seen in mass, presented 

 the aspect of uniform blueness. This was 

 nothing short of a creation — a miracle; nobody, 

 before Mr. Burbank launched this flower, had 

 ever seen a blue poppy. He developed it from 

 a "sport," a flower in which he detected, under- 

 lying the normal color, a smokiness suggestive 

 of a half-concealed blue pigmentation. ^ 



BURBANK'S ART SHIRLEYS 



The Shirley bed on our lawn, three feet wide 

 and twenty feet long, had this morning more 



^ Burbank no longer offers the blue Shirley separately, but Drcer 

 now has it. I found it, in 1921, lovelier, larger, and deeper in color 

 than ever. Don't fail to get it I 



