NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
Burbank, the great plant-breeder. The potato 
which he developed from this seed-ball has 
not only disproved the dictum of those who 
said a potato famine was at hand because of 
the steady deterioration of the world’s stock, 
but it has added to the wealth of this nation 
alone upwards of twenty millions of dollars. 
The creator of the new potato sold it to a local 
seedsman for $150. 
It was not long after this that he suffered 
a partial sunstroke in the broiling heat of a 
July day and, seeking a climate where he 
might be able to live an outdoor life without 
fear of a return attack, and where he might 
hope some day to put in effect some of the 
theories of the development of plant life 
already stirring in his brain, he started for 
California, with a slender purse and ten of his 
new potatoes. He reached California in 1875, 
and went north from San Francisco some fifty 
miles to an unimproved valley lying between 
two spurs of the Coast Range Mountains, 
today a rich fruit and farming country. 
He was then a little past twenty-one, slen- 
der, not over-strong, and yet possessed of 
much vitality and endurance. These latter he 
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