The pay was small, and he did not
have as much or as good food as some pet dogs get. But all the time he
was saying to himself: "If I can have patience, I shall yet get a farm
of my own."

By and by he was hired to look after a small nursery (this is what a big
plantation of trees is called). He would have been perfectly happy
there if sleeping in a damp room had not given him a fever. He was poor,
sick, and almost alone, but not quite, for a very poor woman, who had
only the milk of one cow to sell, found him one day lying on a bed of
straw, and ever after that insisted on his drinking a pint of her milk
each day. He declared that this milk saved his life.

For some years Luther took one odd job after another until he saved
enough to buy a small piece of ground. Then he was soon raising plants
and making new varieties. He read and studied and tried experiments.
Sometimes he failed, and even when he succeeded there was a good deal of
fun made of him. Some people thought Luther Burbank was crazy. It seemed
such an odd thing for a man to think of doing--making a fruit or a
flower that had not been heard of or dreamed of before! But he did not
pay any heed to all this sneering. He worked harder than ever. And
before long, the first new plants were in great demand, so that by
selling them he got money to buy more land. To-day some of the largest
orchards in California are growing from one of Luther Burbank's
experiments. And our country is millions of dollars richer from his new
kinds of plums, potatoes, and prunes.

Mr. Burbank bought acres of land, hired armies of workmen, denied
himself pleasures and visitors, and did not mind how tired he was, so
long as old plants were being made better, or new plants were being
created. Pretty soon letters began to come from Russia, France, Japan,
England, South America, and Africa, asking for some Burbank plants and
some Burbank advice as to their care.

Mr. Burbank has made more new forms of plant life than any other man. He
has worked on two thousand, five hundred species of plants. Besides
making flowers more beautiful and of sweeter fragrance, he has done
wonders with the cactus plants that grow on prairies. Once all these
plants were covered with thorns and prickles, so that the cattle who bit
into them rushed away with bleeding mouths, feeling much the same as we
should if we put our teeth into a stalk of celery and bit on to
fish-hooks and needles. Well, Mr. Burbank has c