LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 
through his life,—the one broadening, the other 
deepening his nature. 
From the earliest childhood he was passion- 
ately devoted to flowers and to all forms of 
plant life. Very many incidents are related 
illustrative of this. His mother and sisters 
had noticed that whenever he was given a 
flower, while lying in his cradle, he always held 
it with a certain childish tenderness, never 
crushing nor dropping it but keeping it, if 
allowed, until its bloom was faded or its fra- 
grance gone. One day when his sister had 
given him a flower he held it in his tiny fin- 
gers with his usual earnestness until a petal 
fell off. Then, with infinite childish patience, 
he strove to put the petal back in place and 
thus restore the flower. When a little older 
and able to toddle about, he chose plants for 
pets instead of animals. He was given a plant 
in a pot, a so-called lobster cactus as the 
variety of cactus was locally known, and for 
hours at a time he trudged about house and 
yard carrying the cactus plant in his little 
arms. One day he stumbled and fell, broke 
the plant from its stem and destroyed the 
pot. It was a day of great sadness, for he 
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