THE NEW WORK 



well under way and promising rare results is 

 the work upon a new edible passion-flower 

 fruit. When at Sebastopol I found one work- 

 man upon his knees in the midst of a long 

 row of low vines, industriously cutting away 

 the long runners or branches and pruning the 

 plants into shape for another season's work. 

 I noticed that the plants growing so thickly 

 upon the ground bore numerous green balls, 

 usually somewhat elongated and about the size 

 of a hen's egg, some of them larger. The 

 plants were still green, though many dead 

 leaves were being raked out. They grew close 

 to the ground, quite as a melon grows only 

 with shorter stems and much more numerous 

 in leaves. 



It was very difficult to realize that this low- 

 growing, industrious-looking plant, which was 

 being so severely pruned, was the passion- 

 flower plant known by this name since the 

 day when the first Spanish settlers in America 

 discovered it, and saw in its curiously interest- 

 ing flowers a representation of our Lord's pas- 

 sion, — the slender filaments of the corona the 

 crown of thorns, the styles the nails of the 

 cross, and the five anthers the marks of the 



419 



