A BACKWARD GLANCE 



golden-yellow. In spite of individual differences, 

 this color is the characteristic of the kind. It is a 

 fixed characteristic, dating back at least to the 

 time when California, because of the poppy 

 covered hills, received its name — the land of fire — 

 from the early Spanish navigators that ventured 

 up and down the coast. 



Out of the billion billions of wild poppies that 

 have grown, each million has no doubt contained 

 its freaks or its "sports" — its few experimental 

 individuals which Nature has given the tendency 

 to break away from the characteristics of their 

 fellows. 



Yet in the history of the California poppy 

 family, as far back as we can trace, none of these 

 freaks or "sports" had ever achieved its object. 



Among the "sports" which Mr. Burbank found 

 in the million poppies he grew were one with a 

 crimson tendency, one with a white tendency, and 

 one with a lemon-yellow, fiery-red tendency. 



If Mr. Burbank had not intervened, these 

 freaks, quite likely, would have perished without 

 offspring. 



But by nurturing them, separating them and 

 saving their seeds, within a few brief seasons he 

 was able to produce three new kinds of the 

 California poppy. 



Each kind had all of the parent poppy charac- 



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