THE SHASTA DAISY 301 



The daisies in question, of which the plant 

 bearing the nearly white flowers was the best 

 example, had been produced by several years of 

 experimentation which had commenced with the 

 cultivation of the common roadside weed famil- 

 iar to everyone in the East as the oxeye daisy, 

 and known to the botanist as Chrysanthemum 

 leucanthemum. This plant, which grows in 

 such profusion throughout the East as to be 

 considered a pest by the farmer, was not to 

 be found in California until these experiments 

 were begun. 



My admiration for the plant was chiefly as a 

 souvenir of boyhood days. But I soon con- 

 ceived the idea of bettering it, for it had certain 

 qualities that seemed to suggest undeveloped 

 possibilities. 



In the countryside of New England, the 

 oxeye, as everyone knows, is a very hardy 

 plant and a persistent bloomer. Its very 

 abundance has denied it general recognition, 

 yet it is not without its claims to beauty. 

 But it did not greatly improve or very 

 notably change its appearance during the 

 first few seasons of its cultivation in Cali- 

 fornia; nor indeed until after I had given it 

 a new impetus by hybridizing it with an allied 

 species. 



