NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



would be interesting to give an odor to a calla 

 'upon which he was working. Very carefully 

 the plants under test were studied, and at last 

 one was found which bore signs of being a 

 desirable one to use in furthering the experi^ 

 ment. Work was at once begun on it. After 

 years of study and labor he has bred into a 

 scentless calla the odor of the Parma violet, 

 the rarest of violet odors. ^ 



One of the many strange incidents occurring 

 all through the work which Mr. Burbank 

 carries on developed while some of the lily 

 tests were under way. One curious lily had 

 gone backward into a sad state of total 

 depravity, as far as fragrance is concerned. It 

 gave forth an odor so powerfully repugnant 

 that the people living in a cottage on the 

 grounds at Sebastopol near the lily bed, found 

 it impossible to endure it. One day before the 

 bed was destroyed, Mr. Burbank was sitting 

 in the sunshine after his luncheon watching a 

 huge buzzard soaring in the blue sky. Sud- 

 denly the bird paused in its sweep, poised an 

 instant, and then shot down into the bed of 

 lilies. It floundered around an instant in the 

 bed and then, with, as Mr. Burbank expressed 



182 



