NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



less opuntias, growing in such splendid fashion 

 as those which are now growing (March, 1907) 

 in Mr. Burbank's proving grounds at Santa 

 Rosa and Sebastopol, tall, upright, immense 

 plants, tropic iff their luxuriance, but firm, 

 strong, vigorous and healthy, you would see a 

 field producing not two hundred tons per sea- 

 son, nor even five hundred, but nine thousand 

 tons per season, — under specially favorable 

 conditions of climate, soil, and irrigation, fifteen 

 thousand tons. Does this not suggest some- 

 thing of the enormous scope and influence of 

 this mighty new force in plant life? ^ 



As in the case of the fast-growing walnut 

 trees, described in another chapter, there may 

 be people who will consider such a statement 

 overdrawn or chimerical, but the same answer 

 will apply in the one case as the other. The 

 trees with precisely the same wonderful char- 

 acteristics are now growing, living evidence, 

 while the cactus plants are growing in splen- 

 did strength just as here described, and with 

 just this magnificent promise of help for the 

 race. The fact is that just as Mr. Burbank, in 

 the development of the scientific side of his 

 work, has accomplished things scientists have 



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