226 LUTHER BURBANK 



latter part of the tenth century, when a large 

 tract of territory in Scotland, known as Ross- 

 shire, was awarded to them for bravery in those 

 ancient battles for supremacy. 



I have always felt that my passionate love of 

 flowers, which is said to have been manifested in 

 infancy, was inherited from her. 



Despite the poetical element in her tempera- 

 ment, my mother was eminently practical. Being 

 of mature years when she married, she bore only 

 five children, and outlived my father by many 

 years, nearly reaching the century mark. She 

 passed her declining days in my home at Santa 

 Rosa, active to the very last and keenly alive to 

 all that was going on around her. 



The Physical and Mental Environment 

 OF Childhood 



My father's two-hundred-acre farm was 

 located about three miles north of the village 

 of Lancaster, Massachusetts. 



There I was born — at least so the great family 

 Bible and the family traditions assure me — 

 March 7th of the year 1849. And there my 

 childhood and boyhood days were passed. 



At that time the long-smoldering antislavery 

 fires were preparing to burst forth. And just 

 at the time when the great civic conflict was 



