LUTHER BURBANK 



tation to insure me pretty steady work. But every 

 cent that I could earn, beyond the barest cost of 

 maintenance, was put into stock for my prospec- 

 tive nursery; and, as has been said, the evening 

 hours after the day's work with the hammer was 

 over were devoted to the culture of seedlings. 



The tedious and almost disheartening char- 

 acter of the task of establishing myself as a prac- 

 tical nurseryman at Santa Rosa may perhaps be 

 illustrated about as tangibly as otherwise could 

 be done by the citation of memoranda from old 

 account books, which show that the total sales of 

 nursery products in 1877, the first year that my 

 nursery was supposed to be in operation, 

 amounted to just $15.20. The products . that 

 brought this munificent return are listed as "Nurs- 

 ery stock and ornamental and flowering plants." 



The following year, 1878, the total return from 

 the nursery sales was $84. 



The third year the sales amounted to $353.28. 

 The fourth year they came to $702. And it was 

 not until 1881, when the nursery had been fo" five 

 years in operation, that the aggregate returns from 

 the sale of its products of all descriptions passed 

 the thousand dollar mark. The specific figure, in 

 1881, was $1,112.69. 



The figures thus baldly presented tell their own 

 story. They show that the nursery business in 



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