LUTHER BURBANK 



learned ultimately that the only satisfactory 

 expedient was to shave off the spicules with a 

 sharp razor, or to sandpaper them off, which can 

 readily be done where a great quantity is to be 

 dealt with. When thus reduced in size they would 

 not farther enter the flesh, and gradually the pain 

 would subside. 



But the recollection of the torture in connection 

 with the development of the spineless cactus will 

 always remain the most painful one associated 

 with any of my plant developments. 



No other complication comparable to this has 

 been encountered in connection with the consider- 

 ably over ten thousand species of plants with 

 which I have experimented. 



But possibly it will appear in the end that no 

 other series of experiments that I have undertaken 

 can be compared in importance to the production 

 of the race of spineless giants which tower to 

 almost treelike proportions, and grow with such 

 rapidity as to produce on good agricultural land 

 from one hundred and fifty to three hundred tons 

 of new forage to the acre annually by the third 

 season after planting, besides nearly one-half as 

 much fruit, yet which are as tender and succulent 

 as grass, affording forage of fine quality in 

 unprecedented quantity, and which can send their 

 roots far into the earth and gain a supply of water 



[170] 



