NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



for example, has been built up very largely 

 upon one or two of his plums. The plums 

 introduced by a few trees in a region which 

 was by ijature and climate suited to them 

 rapidly increased as growers saw their good 

 points, until they became the center of a 

 packing and shipping industry employing 

 thousands of people in the growing and 

 preparation of the fruit. 



Something of the wide - reaching influence 

 of the new plums is seen in the fact that 

 several of them are now being extensively 

 cultivated on the island of Borneo, supplant- 

 ing largely the native fruits of this type and 

 promising to revolutionize the fruit culture 

 of the island. They are also shipped from 

 Borneo to surrounding countries. The late 

 Cecil Rhodes became so much interested in 

 the work of Mr. Burbank that he ordered 

 some plum grafts for his extensive fruit ranch 

 near Cape Town. One day several years 

 afterward, a consignment of the plums which 

 grew from these cuttings was shipped 18,000 

 miles by steamer and rail from Cape Town 

 to San Francisco, as a test, arriving after their 

 long journey in prime condition. From many 



112 



