CHAPTER VIII 
THE SHASTA DAISY 
( hin green hills rising behind the house 
where Luther Burbank was born were 
ever an inviting place in his boyhood days. 
He knew the haunts of the wild flowers and 
the hour of their earliest appearing. From 
the time the snows gave way to the spring 
sun until they came again in the bleak No- 
vember days, he was in constant intercourse 
with the hills, learning the language of Nature 
in the only school where it is taught without 
an interpreter. Something in his own nature 
brought him into instant contact and sym- 
pathy with the great heart of the Nature 
around him. A certain peculiar intimacy with 
Nature grew up and produced, if one may so put 
it, the most absolute frankness toward her and 
trust in her. This was well illustrated one day 
in his maturer years when a great scientist 
called upon Mr. Burbank, Dr. Hugo de Vries, 
of Amsterdam, certainly one of the leading 
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