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-38-

seven of them.

In a letter to his mother, Burbank described Santa Rosa as "the chosen spot of all this earth as far as Nature is concerned."

The same thought appears in a speech Father delivered, welcoming a fraternal organization to the Sonoma Valley in 1897.  We have the manuscript, framed in his neat, copperplate handwriting.  If the language sounds a trifle florid, it is nonetheless quite typical of the fashions in oratory of that day.  Father said:

"These hills and plains smile in tranquil serenity.  The God of Nature unfolds before you a panorama of bewildering beauty.  Yon mountains are a treasure trove that teems with Nature's stores.  These distant valleys, purpling through the melting haze, bear on their bosoms timbers of every variety in almost endless abundance.  Upon these hillsides droop the luscious grape and olive.  It seems unreal that Nature should bestow her beauties with such unstinted hand in one locality, but all are here, and set within a frame of such bewitching