CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 



terious enemy, or from some sudden and 

 fatal plant illness; but not a clue had been 

 left as to the author of the disaster. The 

 plant could never be reproduced and the 

 loss was a very heavy one. 



Many times, however, in the midst of 

 the tests, the foes of the insect and animal 

 world make open war upon the plants, and 

 it would seem sometimes as if with malice 

 aforethought. Some particularly valuable 

 gladioli were surrounded by a row of ordi- 

 nary gladioli in order to tempt the thieving 

 gophers, should they appear, to satisfy them- 

 selves with the coarser bulbs and thus pre- 

 serv^e the choice ones. The gophers, how- 

 ever, were not to be put off in any such 

 manner, but passed by the common bulbs 

 and destroyed the rare ones, entailing a 

 severe loss. Mr. Burbank showed me one day 

 a large bed of seedling roses. In one end 

 was a heavy growth of young plants, in 

 the other a space several feet square in 

 which there were not over a half dozen tiny 

 little plants just peeping up through the 

 soil. The plants which had been spared by 

 the birds that had swooped down upon the 



171 



