CHAPTER VI 



THE LILIES 



^JURELY, since the world began, Nature 

 *—' never presented a stranger spectacle than 

 that seen several years ago on Mr. Bur- 

 bank's proving grounds at Sebastopol, when a 

 hundred thousand seedling hybrid lilies were 

 in blossom at the same time. And never 

 before did so vast a volume of perfume, — 

 there is no other figure to express it, — rise 

 toward the summer sky. So intense was the 

 fragrance that ranchmen a mile away could 

 distinctly detect it, while all the country round 

 about and the little town that lies at the 

 entrance to this wondrous place was saturated 

 with the odor. It was a strange composite 

 fragrance, too, a thousand scents blended into 

 one ; for with the tens upon tens of thousands 

 of different lilies came not only a well-nigh 

 infinite variety of flower, but an indescribably 

 rare and complex odor unlike anything the 

 world had known before. 



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