LUTHER BURBANK 



potato of the Pacific Coast. Long before this, 

 however, I had ceased to grow the potato. It was 

 only during the first few years, before its cultiva- 

 tion became general, that I could profitably grow 

 it for seed purposes. 



For the rest, I began my nursery business at 

 Santa Rosa by raising such fruits and vegetables 

 as gave promise of being immediately acceptable 

 to the people of the vicinity. At that time the pos- 

 sibilities of California as a fruit center were for 

 the most part vaguely realized, and it was first 

 necessary to educate the Californians themselves 

 to a recognition of the fact that in the soil and 

 climate of their state were the potentialities of 

 greater wealth than had ever been stored in the 

 now almost depleted gold mines. 



Once that lesson had been learned, there would 

 be no great difficulty about disposing of the fruit, 

 for the railways either built or projected insured 

 facilities for transportation. 



As to the latter point, however, the conditions 

 were very different from what they now are. The 

 refrigerator car had not come into vogue, and the 

 possibility of transporting fresh fruits across the 

 continent at a reasonable cost seemed remote. So 

 it was natural that such fruits as the prune and 

 the olive were the ones that chiefly attracted at- 

 tention. Their product could be transported any- 



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