Besides this triumph he has succeeded in obtaining a variety of this
fruit having a shell-less kernel, so that the fruit when dried much
resembles those which are artificially stuffed.
The flowers which Mr. Burbank has evolved by his methods, and those
which he has simply enlarged and glorified, are far too numerous to be
named here.
In 1905 a grant of ten thousand dollars a year was bestowed upon Mr.
Burbank by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., for the purpose
of assisting him in his experiments. Seldom has money been better
placed.
Chapter XVI
The Hidden Treasures of Mother Earth
Thousands of years ago, before the time of which we have any history,
there were rivers in California,--rivers now dead,--whose sides were
steeper and whose channels were wider than those of the rivers in the
same part of the world to-day. Rapid streams they were, and busy, too;
washing away from the rocks along their sides the gold held there,
dropping the yellow grains down into the gravelly beds below. After a
time there came down upon these rivers a volcanic outflow; great
quantities of ashes, streams of lava and cement, burying them hundreds
of feet deep, until over them mountain ridges extended for miles and
miles.
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