NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
hastened with all sincerity to give him the 
benefit of their knowledge and to furnish him 
with pointers for the carrying on of his work. 
But while he would never discharge a man 
because he was a university graduate,—for he 
has an ardent sympathy for all higher educa- 
tion that is sane, symmetrical, and devoid of 
veneer,—yet he has never been able to keep 
in service a single university student. Time 
and again some enthusiastic young fellow 
would enter upon the work, and, bred to the 
nomenclature and the traditions of the scien- 
tists, would at once begin enlightening Mr. 
Burbank on the best plan to follow in a given 
instance, forgetting that the silent man pa- 
tiently listening to him stood at the head of 
the plant-breeders of the world. 
Not only does he demand sympathy upon 
the part of his workmen and the rarest intelli- 
gence obtainable, but he demands absolute 
sobriety. Much of the work of pollenation, 
grafting, budding, seed-sowing, and even so 
apparently simple a piece of work as the re- 
moving of weeds from around thousands of 
the tiny plants, requires the very steadiest of 
nerves, so that no workman may use tobacco 
138 
