NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
was as inconsolable in his grief over the loss 
of the pet plant as another child would have 
been over the death of a bird or a faithful 
dog. 
Strangely enough, a half century later, in 
the prime of his manhood, he has given years 
of his life to the study of other forms of this 
pet of his childhood days, creating a series 
of thornless, edible cacti, not only providing 
a vast reservoir of food for man and for un- 
counted millions of the beasts of the field, 
but paving the way for the reclamation of the 
desert places of the earth. That which was 
once a dangerous foe of man and beast be- 
comes, through him, a stanch friend;—it is a 
noble boon to the race. 
Year by year, as he grew into boyhood, his 
love for all the beautiful things in the world 
around him steadily deepened. As soon as he 
was old enough to be placed in school, he at 
once attracted the attention of his teachers by 
his love for study. The love for his school and 
the love for the flowers and the trees and the 
birds were always manifest. And in the ripe 
days of his prime one may see him turn with 
boyish eagerness from the discussion of some 
4 
