NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 
which one of Mr. Burbank’s creations is the 
most valuable to the world from a practical 
point of view, which one adds most to the 
wealth of nations. But probably no other 
creation has surpassed this one, for it provides 
for the sustenance of the race, food for man 
and food for beast; it utilizes the vast desert 
areas of the world without the intervention 
of irrigation, though irrigation will aid here as 
elsewhere; it converts enormous reaches of 
semi-arable land in all zones to profitable 
husbandry. 
It had long been known that there were 
certain kinds of cactus growths having few, 
if any, thorns and certain ones the fruit of 
which natives of some countries considered 
edible. It sometimes happens in Mr. Bur- 
bank’s work that the essential thing is to com- 
bine excellent attributes and eliminate bad 
ones, rather than to create a wholly new plant. 
And so it was in the case of the cactus. And 
yet, in one sense, the cactus he has produced 
is absolutely new, because no other cactus has 
ever combined so many excellencies, devoid of 
obnoxious elements,—he has bred out the bad 
and bred in the good. It is quite like the 
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