200 GARDENING WITH BRAINS '^ 



place. In 1885 he added a plot of land at 

 Sebastopol, eight miles from Santa Rosa; this 

 was larger — eighteen acres — and has been used 

 ever since as testing ground for trees and flowers 

 and vegetables. He chose this spot because it 

 provided a variety of soils and degrees of mois- 

 ture. In the dry California climate it was a 

 tremendous advantage to have garden and 

 orchard land some parts of which "are so moist 

 that the water seeps up to the surface throughout 

 the season, and the remainder is so loose and 

 friable that moisture may be found all through 

 the summer even six months after rain has 

 fallen upon it." 



There were plant breeders, especially in Ori- 

 ental countries, centuries before this American 

 harnessed his twenty-two acres at Santa Rosa 

 and Sebastopol, but W. S. Harwood, who wrote 

 a valuable book on Burbank's New Creations 

 in Plant Life, did not claim too much when he 

 said that "not all the plant breeders who have 

 preceded or accompanied him have done so 

 much for the world." That was twenty years 

 ago, and in the meantime the output of novelties 

 has been doubled, trebled, quintupled, and to- 

 day, after passing the threescore-and-ten age, 

 the wonder worker is busier and more beneficent 

 than ever. 



A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW 



Just now [Mr. Burbank wrote to me on September 11, 

 1920] I have something between five and six thousand 



