One of the most interesting experiences of my life was in 1903 when I visited a French barber in a little town called Nevada City, California, in the foothills of the Sierras. He had come over to this country without a penny and had set up a barber shop in this little mining village of Nevada City. He had saved from his fees for cutting people's hair and shaving them, $3,000. He had bought a piece of barren hillside which everybody laughed at him for buying; and he sent an order for $2,500 worth of nut trees and fruit trees to a nursery firm in his old home in France. He did this without even having an irrigating system with which to irrigate those plants when they arrived. He told me with tears in his eyes how he had worked night and day, carrying buckets of water to save this collection of plants when it arrived from France. When I visited Felix Gillett in his plantation there, which he called the _Barren Hill Nursery_, I felt that I had never seen a more delightful spot in my life. It was a kind of a paradise which he had built up by his love for plants and his wonderful knowledge of the varieties which he handled. He certainly was one of the great experts of this country in the nut and fruit industry, particularly the nut industry. It is his collection of hazelnuts which Mr. Reed spoke of as having found its way into Mr. Quarnburg's hands. In fact I was at Mr. Quarnburg's place a year ago last summer and learned that he got his first start from this little French barber in the mountains of Nevada.