hanged all that. The
fruit of some of his cactus plants is almost as sweet as oranges; the
thorns are all gone so that the stalks are fine food for cattle; some of
the leaves make good pickles or greens; and the small plants are used
for hedges. So the plants that were in old times a pest and nuisance are
to-day, thanks to Mr. Burbank, a comfort to the world.

Luther Burbank is a handsome, courteous gentleman, fond of fun, of young
people and children, but you can see how busy he has been in the odd
science of making new plants and trees, and as he has plans for a great
many more, you will also understand why he really has to have those
signs put up around his farm at Santa Rosa.

EDWARD ALEXANDER MACDOWELL

On a lovely Sunday morning, some years ago, when all the sweet June
smells came in through the open church window, an old man with silvery
white hair played such a soft, entrancing little air on the organ, as
the ushers took the weekly offering, that the listeners held their
breath. "What is it?" they whispered. "What is the dainty thing called?"
They asked the organist at the close of the service, and he answered:
"That was MacDowell's 'To a Wild Rose'--and MacDowell is a composer of
whom America may well be proud."

Edward MacDowell was born in New York. He had his first piano lessons
when he was eight years old. But as soon as he had learned the notes,
his mother noticed that it was not exercises that he played, but merry,
rollicking airs. When she asked him where he found them, he replied: "In
my head and heart." He was even then composing music of his own. His
mother did not run to the neighbors at once, crying "My son is a
genius." Instead of that she thought: "Dear me, I am afraid Edward will
be a Jack-of-all-trades and good at none, for he writes beautiful
stories and poems and draws exact likenesses of people. What in the
world shall we do with him?"

All his music teachers said it would be wicked not to keep him at the
piano. But that was easier said than done. When, at the age of fifteen,
he went with his mother to Paris, he passed fine examinations for
entrance to the French Conservatory and learned the French language in
no time, so as to understand the teachers and lecturers. But he was
still apt to forget that he went to his classes to listen and spent much
time sketching the faces of teacher or pupils on the margin of his
note-book. MacDowell was busy one day, over a picture of a teacher