NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



hastened with all sincerity to give him the 

 benefit of their knowledge and to furnish him 

 with pointers for the carrying on of his work. 

 But while he would never discharge a man 

 because he was a university graduate, — for he 

 has an ardent sympathy for all higher educa- 

 tion that is sane, symmetrical, and devoid of 

 veneer, — yet he has never been able to keep 

 in service a single university student. Time 

 and again some enthusiastic young fellow 

 would enter upon the work, and, bred to the 

 nomenclature and the traditions of the scien- 

 tists, would at once begin enlightening Mr. 

 Burbank on the best plan to follow in a given 

 instance, forgetting that the silent man pa- 

 tiently listening to him stood at the head of 

 the plant-breeders of the world. 



Not only does he demand sympathy upon 

 the part of his workmen and the rarest intelli- 

 gence obtainable, but he demands absolute 

 sobriety. Much of the work of poUenation, 

 grafting, budding, seed-sowing, and even so 

 apparently simple a piece of work as the re- 

 moving of weeds from around thousands of 

 the tiny plants, requires the very steadiest of 

 nerves, so that no workman may use tobacco 



138 



