rare and beautiful fruit and as palatable as it is beautiful; the
primusberry, a union of the raspberry and the blackberry; another
wonderful and delicious berry produced from the California dewberry
and the Cuthbert-raspberry; pieplants four feet in diameter, bearing
every day in the year; prunes, three, four, and five times as large
as the ordinary and enriched in flavor; blackberries without their
prickly thorns and hundreds of other combinations and crosses of fruits
and flowers too numerous to mention. He has improved plums, pears,
apples, apricots, quinces, peaches, cherries, grapes, in short, all
kinds of fruit which grow in our latitude and many even that have been
introduced. He has developed hundreds of varieties of flowers, improving
them in color, hardiness and yield. Thus he has not only added to the
food and manufacturing products of the world, but he has enriched the
aesthetic side in his beautiful flower creations.




CHAPTER VIII

LATEST DISCOVERIES IN ARCHAEOLOGY

Prehistoric Time--Earliest Records--Discoveries in Bible Lands--
American Explorations.


For the earliest civilization and culture we must go to that part of
the world, which according to the general belief, is the cradle of the
human race. The civilization of the Mesopotamian plain is not only the
oldest but the first where man settled in great city communities, under