ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA 



Year by year the reputation of the Burbank 

 Nursery spread, until people were coming from a 

 hundred miles or more away, and the number of 

 would-be purchasers was so great that sometimes 

 there was quite a crowd of them in my dooryard 

 waiting their turn. 



The quest of prune trees became such a hobby 

 that it came to be the current jest when anyone 

 was asked for to respond: "Well, if you do not 

 find him in town, you will probably find him at 

 Burbank's Nursery waiting for some trees." 



In course of time more land was needed, so I 

 purchased the four-acre place in the very heart 

 of Santa Rosa which was in future to be my home 

 and the seat of many of my most important 

 experiments. 



This place, which has since become so well- 

 known, was then a neglected, run-down plot which 

 had been on the market for many years. The land 

 was about as poor as could be found. Many 

 attempts had been made to cultivate it, but a crop 

 had not been grown upon it for a long time. 



Such a plot of land did not seem to offer great 

 inducements for a nurseryman. But I had a plan 

 in mind that I thought would transform it. 



My first move was to place tiles under the 

 whole tract at a depth of four feet, thus draining 

 the land which had at one time been the bottom 



[95] 



