One of the hillside gardens at "The Te n u 
RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 
Y first childhood recollections are of the sage-brush reaches and bare 
mountains of Nevada, for my family had made the long dri\-e across 
"The Plains" from Michigan before I was four years old. A few years 
later the call of California came to mv parents and ultimately we settled 
at Ukiah. 
Dm-ing these few years the beauty of our native flowers and trees 
made a great impression upon me, eventually de\'eloping into a strong- 
love of nature and a desire to engage in the growing of many of these beauliful native 
plants. 
When I was about seventeen years of age m\- fate was decided by a simple incident: 
A flower-loving friend received a letter from an eastern dealer offering to exchange garden 
flowers for collected bulbs and plants. Desiring to increase my own ccjllection, I answered 
the letter, and receix ed a small order for bulbs — and much encoiu-agement in my venture. 
This small transaction indicated to me that here was an opportunity to engage in busi- 
ness for myself, and in a few short months I had laid the foundations for a European 
export business in native bulbs and plants. 
In a comjiaratively short time I had trained men co\'ering the coastal region, who 
sent in to me the l)ull)s of their home sections, and I suspect it is perfectly safe to say 
that I have collected and distriljuted during the past three decades at least ten million 
California native bulbs. Of late years the culture of hardy plants, landscape gardening, 
