Santa Rosa High School - Echo Yearbook (Santa Rosa, CA)

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL Every evening saw him tired, yet happy and contented. He se- cured work very easily now . One day an order came from a man who wished to start an orchard for growing prunes. He asked Mr. Burbank for twenty thousand young prune trees. He must have them ready in nine months. “Ill fill that order,” the young nurseryman said. Any one else would require two and a half years to get so many trees ready for planting. With haste he traversed the com- munity to find men and boys to plant almonds. It was late in ithe seasom and almond trees were the ones that would bloom the quickest. In a short time the scions were beginning to bud. When the nine months came to an end, behold! there were twenty thousand prune trees ready for the orchardist. To- day this orchard is full grown and one of the richest orchards of the community. From this time on Mr. Burbank was more successful in his business. He sold his nursery and began the work that was dearest to his heart. He took fruits and flowers and from these he made others that were better and ‘more beautiful. Slowly bul surely he met with success, and people all over; the world began to hear of Luther Burbank, the wonderful things he was doing in Santa Rosa. It is true that today Santa Rosa is better known because it is the home of the great wonder worker. A half century after Mr. Burbank broke his pet Cactus plant he created a series of thornless, edible cacti, not only pro- viding a a vast reservoir of food for man and and for un- counted millions of animals, but paving the way for the recla- mation of the desert places of the earth. That which was once a daugerous foe of man and beast became, through Mr. Bur- bank, a stanch friend. Better still, if it could only bear fruit that would be good to eat, it would furnish food to animals and travelers crossing the desert. Mr. Burbank worked and worked until he produced the delicious pink fruit of the cactus. On the hillside near Mr. Burbank’s New England home

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL came in the young man’s life. For sometime he had heen watching very closely the potatoes in his garden, The green tops were not all alike, and one of them had something not found in any of the others. It was a seed ball. Mr. Burbank watched this very carefully and one day he said to himself. “If I plant this seedball, quite different po- iatoes will grow from it than from the other potatoes. The country was nearly on the verge of a potato famine. It is said today that our country has gained twenty millions of dollars through Mr. Burbank’s discovery, while he himself sold the seed he had raised for one hundred and fifty dollars. Not long afterwards, at the age of twenty-one, he started for California, taking with him ten of his new potatoes. After reaching San Francisco, it was to our city of Santa Rosa that this man, whom the world honors as a benefactor of mankind, came and to this day makes his home here. Not being able to hire lodgings ,he slept in a damp room above a steaming hot house. This constant exposure and lack of proper nourishment brought on a fever. A poor woman in the neighborhood found him one day in such condition. She insisted in sharing with him the small portion of milk which she could afford to spare from the one cow that supplied her family. He protested against taking it because he might never be able to repay her, and there was scant hope to do it, but the woman insisted, and the pint of milk a day which she brought him saved the life of this great man. The man who was to become the foremost figure in the world in his line of work, and who was to pave the way by his own discoveries and creations, who had already done what would gain for his country ‘millions of dollars, was a stranger in a strange land, close to starvation, penniless, being kept alive only by the generosity of a poor woman. Never for an instant did this heroic figure lose hope, never once did he swerve from the path he had marked out. It was a wan and haggard figure that rose once more to start work.

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THE ECHO OF THE SANTA ROSA HIGH SCHOOL many wild floweres grew. As a boy Mr. Burbank loved them all. He watched for their coming in the springtime. He knew how late in the autumn he could find them. They were his friends, and among them was the little field daisy so common that many pass it by without noticing its beauty. After Luther Burbank came to Santa Rosa, he remembered this little friend of his childhood. He thought, “I will make a daisy which every one will admire.” He learned that in Eng- land there are daisies which are larger and have coarser stems than those he had always known. In far-away Japan the daisy is small, but of the purest white. The New England daisy, though neither large nor perfectly white, is strong. He would join together the best daisies of the three continents, and make a fourth one which would possess the best qualities of each. He trusted Nature to help him. Before Mr. Burbank could make what he wished he had to plant thousands of daisies. He had to give them the most careful care. Again and again one out of a thousand was chosen on account of improved qualities. Season after season the bees gave their aid in carrying the pollen from the blossoms of one plant to the blossoms of another. Only the best and strongest and strongest plants were allowed to live, for first of all the new daisy must be strong. At last the wonderful Shasta daisy was created. There was never such a daisy before. It will grow in the cold lands of the north as well as close to the equator. The flower will re- main fresh in, water for weeks after it has been cut from the plant. It is very large and beautiful, with snow white petals and a center of velvety yellow. It is now grown all over the world. In northern California there is a high mountain peak whose summit is always covered with snow. It is called Mt. Shasta, the word meaning snow. “I will call my new daisy after the mountain peak that I love so well,” Mr. Burbank said, and