THE NEW OPUNTIAS 



and control output, squeezing out of the enter- 

 prise every dollar it would yield. A fortune 

 could thus have been made, and perhaps, to 

 some, it would seem a logical and legitimate 

 enterprise. But it would not have been Mr. 

 Burbank's way of doing things ; it would have 

 been to stultify himself. 



As there are no monopolistic restrictions 

 upon the output, and as the cactus is of such 

 remarkably rapid multiplication and growth, 

 it will be but a comparatively short time 

 before it will be the property of the world. It 

 is interesting to note in this connection that, 

 through the generous offer of an Australian 

 for the right to introduce the cactus into that 

 country, Mr. Burbank has been enabled to 

 build that which he had never had before, a 

 comfortable house in which to live, — the Aus- 

 tralian paying three thousand five hundred 

 dollars for five leaves. 



It was in the period that marked the great 

 change in his life from a prosperous nursery- 

 man to the career of a scientific plant-breeder 

 that Mr. Burbank first began a practical con- 

 sideration of the possibilities of the cactus. As 

 has been indicated in the chapter dealing in a 



371 



