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LUTHER BURBANK

HIS METHODS AND DISCOVERIES AND
THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATION

PREPARED FROM
mS ORIGINAL FIELD NOTES

COVERING MORE THAN 100,000 EXPERIMENTS

MADE DURING FORTY YEARS DEVOTED

TO PLANT IMPROVEMENT

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF

The Luther Burbank Society

AND ITS
ENTIRE MEMBERSHIP

UNDER THE EDITORIAL DIRECTION OF

John Whitson and Robert John

AND

Henry Smith Williams, M. D., LL. D.

VOLUME XII

ILLUSTRATED WITH

105 DIRECT COLOR PHOTOGRAPH PRINTS PRODUCED BY A

NEW PROCESS DEVISED AND PERFECTED FOR

USE IN THESE VOLUMES

NEW YORK AND LONDON

LUTHER BURBANK PRESS

MCMXV

Copyright, 1915, by

The Luther Bui-bank Society

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
All right* reserved

Volume XII— By Chapters

Foreword .................................................. Page 3

I Luther Burbank — His Boyhood on a
Massachusetts Farm

—The Conception of an Idea and the Birth -

of a Great Ambition .................................. 7

II Luther Burbank — The Early Years
in Santa Rosa

—The Period of Bitter ,,

Struggle ............................................. 61

HF Luther Burbank— His Patience
Rewarded

—The Period of Great
Achievement

IV Luther Burbank— The Sum of His
Work With Plant Life

—What It Has Meant to Science ...

and Agriculture ...................................... J.OD

y Luther Burbank — The Bearing of
His Work on Human Life

—On Improving the Human orto

Plant ................................................ 206

VT The Luther Burbank
Society

—What It Has Done and What -» , -

It Proposes .......................................... 247

List of Direct Color Photograph

Prints in Volume XII .................................... 289

Subject Index to

Volumes I-XII... .. 293

349367

FOREWORD TO VOLUME XII

Having covered the entire range of plants with
which Mr. Burbank has worked, and having ob-
tained a thorough understanding of all the
methods he has employed, we are given, in this
volume, a summing up of what has gone before,
with an eye not only to its application to plant life,
but to the immediate improvement of the human
plant

In this volume also will be found the intimate
life story of Luther Burbank; from his boyhood
days in Massachusetts, through his first hardships
in Santa Rosa, to the final glory of success, to-
gether with a report of the work of the Luther
Burbank Society and an outline of its plans for
the widespread dissemination of Mr. Burbank's
methods and discoveries in the future.

THE EDITORS.

Mr. Burbank's Mother

To Olive Ross Burbank, his mother, Mr. Burbank bears

striking resemblance not alone in his physical features but in

many of his mental traits. Mr. Burbank's mother spent the closing

years of her life with him at Santa Rosa, and she was at

all times a source of inspiration to him.

LUTHER BURBANK— His BOYHOOD

ON A
MASSACHUSETTS FARM

THE CONCEPTION OF AN IDEA
AND THE BIRTH OF A GREAT AMBITION

HAD my father been a superstitious man my
advent would perhaps have been unwel-
come, for I was my father's thirteenth
child. I have no reason to suppose, however, that
this fact was ever given a thought. It is indeed
very likely that at the time of my coming no one
counted heads carefully enough to find out that
the newcomer had drawn the traditionally unlucky
number.

In point of fact, it was only by reference to the
Family Bible that anyone was likely to know the
full roll of the fraternity, for several of my father's
children had died in infancy, and some of the old-
est ones had gone out into the world before the
date of my arrival.

I speak of "my father's children" because my
mother was his third wife, and she had borne
only two children before my birth, both of whom

[VOLUME XII — CHAPTER I]

LUTHER BURBANK

had died in infancy. So there was a considerable
gap between me and the next older child, and as
I ranked eldest in the new coterie, which com-
prised presently two other children — my sister
Emily and my brother Alfred respectively — I occu-
pied in a sense the position of an elder brother in
the fraternity, my half brothers and sisters being
so much senior to me as to seem almost like
members of an older generation.

In my work of later years I was to attain my
successes very largely through practice in plant
breeding of the method of "quantity production,"
as the reader of these volumes is aware. I have
sometimes said facetiously that I gained a clew to
this method by contemplation of my own relation
to the fraternity into which I was born.

Our household, like so many other New
England households of the period, furnished an
illustration of quantity production in the breeding
of the human race. And I have more than once
reflected with amusement that if my father had
been content with a family of twelve offspring —
which in these later days would be considered a
not insignificant brood — there would have been no
horticulturist bearing his name, and it would per-
haps never have been known that the factors of a
devoted plant developer were in the Burbank
heredity.

[8]

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LUTHER BURBANK

In so far, then, as my work may have been
useful to the human race, the principle of quantity
production has been justified.

Viewing the matter in less facetious mood, 1
should perhaps hasten to add that the inherent
love of nature which was the stimulus to my life
work was inherited, in all probability, from my
mother. I was her third child, only, as already
noted, and of course the fact that my father had
children by earlier wives had no bearing on the
hereditary influences that she contributed, which,
as just suggested, were probably largely respon-
sible for the impelling bent that has always domi-
nated me. So, in the last analysis, it is necessary
to recall that, in so far as we may draw analogies
between plant heredities and human heredities,
the production of a horticultural Burbank illus-
trated a principle lying back of and taking
precedence over quantity production — the prin-
ciple, namely, of the selection of the right racial
strains for blending.

It is useless to produce plants in quantity unless
the parent plants are endowed with the right
potentialities.

And doubtless my father never would have had
a child who was an ardent nature worshiper had
he not married for his third wife a woman who
was a nature lover.

[10]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

It must not be forgotten, to be sure, that my
father had a cousin, Professor Levi Sumner Bur-
bank, who was a man of strong scientific proclivi-
ties, and who, indeed, was in part responsible for
stimulating my love of nature, inasumch as he
lived with us at times, and I often rambled with
him in the woods and gained from him a knowl-
edge of the names of rocks and flowers and trees.

This Burbank cousin was a friend of Agassiz.
He was an early member of the American Associa-
tion for the Advancement of Science. He wrote
books on technical aspects of geology, one of these,
it is recalled, being entitled "The Eozonal Lime-
stones of Eastern Massachusetts. He often took
long trips with Agassiz to places of scientific inter-
est. He was for some time curator of geology of
the Boston Society of Natural History, and he had
a large and well selected geological collection.
Through him I gained a certain knowledge of
geology, and in particular of the work of Agassiz,
although I met the great scientist himself on one
occasion only.

THE HEREDITARY BACKGROUND
I mention this scientific Burbank cousin as sug-
gesting that there were certain proclivities that
might in part account for the instincts of a plant
developer in the strains of Burbank heredity. But,
as what has just been said will further suggest,

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ON BOYHOOD DAYS

these were seemingly of a somewhat formal and
technically scientific order, whereas the inspira-
tion for my work has been found rather in an
ardent love of nature.

I desired to deal with the forces of life and
mold the plastic forms of living organisms rather
than to classify the fixed and immutable phe-
nomena of dead ones, which would appear to be
the province of the geologist.

Doubtless, however, the strain of interest in
matters scientific that was evidenced in the geo-
logical proclivities of my Burbank cousin consti-
tuted an important hereditary element that,
mingled with the more poetical and sympathetic
elements of nature-worship which were in the
hereditary strains of my mother's family, rounded
out the characteristics of an essentially practical
plant developer who loved his task for the very
doing of it, yet who never forgot that practical
ends must be achieved.

My father, Samuel Walton Burbank, was a man
of sterling integrity, scholarly tastes, strong convic-
tions, and unusually good business abilities. He
was very indulgent, and fond of his children, and
gave to each the best education within his power.
He was much respected by his neighbors, and
greatly enjoyed associating with them. He was a
sincere man, noted in the neighborhood as one

[13]

LUTHER BURBANK

who could always be depended upon; not for a
display of his views in words but for his sterling
example.

There were men in the community who advo-
cated one course and followed another; my father
was known always as a man who was true to his
principles. What he preached he would practice;
his acts were always in accord with the tenets of
his belief.

I have always chosen to believe that these
homely and traditional New England virtues, bred
in the bone, were not likely to have been omitted
from the heritage of my father's children.

My mother, whose maiden name was Olive
Ross, was an active and intelligent woman, who
looked after her multiform household duties with
scrupulous care. Being naturally expert in read-
ing human character, she was of great assistance
to my father in his business, as he employed much
help, and dealt with men of all classes and of
various nationalities.

My mother was fond of flowers, and despite
her exacting duties, she had the place surrounded
by them. I have always felt that my passionate
love of flowers, which is said to have been mani-
fested in infancy, was inherited from her.

Despite the poetical element in her tempera-
ment, my mother was eminently practical. She

[14]

Luther Burbank at the Age of Nine

No one who has personal acquaintance with the mature
Luther Burbank can glance at this picture without recalling the
phrase: "The child is father to the man." As to mere physical ap-
pearance the man quite commonly bears small resemblani
his boyhood self: but Mr. Burbank is a striking exception
to this. This is a "speaking likeness" of the ma-
ture Luther Burbank, particularly as regards
the expression about the mouth.

LUTHER BURBANK

seemed always to know where anything that was
wanted could be found, and better still, she was
usually able to find it. She was in the truest sense
a helpmate to her husband in all respects. Being
of mature years when she married, she bore only
five children, and she outlived my father by many
years, reaching the age of ninety-six years, and
passing her declining days in my home at Santa
Rosa, active to the very last and keenly alive to all
that was going on around her.

As to aspects of remoter heredity, I have never
very greatly concerned myself. It is said, how-
ever, that one branch of the family on my father's
side was probably Belgian-Dutch far back in the
fifteenth century, this stock supplying the first
authentic trace of our ancestral line.

We next hear of the Burbanks in the North of
England, from which place five Burbank brothers
emigrated to America.

We find by Custom House records that Joseph
Burbank came in the ship Abigail from London in
1635, and that John Burbank, from whom our
family descended, was made a voter at Rowley,
Massachusetts, in 1640. My father's mother was
Ruth Felch, originally from Wales. My mother's
family, the Rosses, came from Scotland. Her
mother's name was Burpee, and her family was
said to be of French descent.

[16]

Luther Burbank at the Age of Fourteen

A verg mature young man was Luther Burbank at the age
of fourteen. It requires no very keen knowledge of physiog-
nomy to detect in this portrait the characteristics of personality that
have made Mr. Burbank's life one of notable aecomplishment.

LUTHER BURBANK

Thus it will be seen that my ancestry, like that
of most people in America, includes strains of
several nationalities. In talking with people who
seem to me over-zealous about their ancestors, I
am sometimes moved to say that although I never
discovered that any royal or exceptionally aristo-
cratic blood flows in our veins, yet, on the other
hand, there appears to be no record that any an-
cestor was ever detected as a criminal — which,
perhaps, from the standpoint of the student of
heredity, is a matter of far greater importance
than the other.

The Burbanks, so far as I personally know of
them, were generally farmers, paper manufac-
turers, railroad men, teachers, and clergymen;
while on the Ross side my ancestors were more
often merchants, mechanics, and horticulturists.

Few families of New England, I suppose, have

a better-sustained record of representation in the

learned professions, in civic duties, in military

stations, and in public reforms, than the Burbanks.

THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ENVIRONMENT

OF CHILDHOOD

My father's farm was located about three miles
north of the little village of Lancaster, Massachu-
setts, just off the main road to Harvard.

There I was born — at least so the great family
Bible and the family traditions assure me — March

[18]

Luther Burbank at the Age of Seventeen

When this picture was taken, Luther Burbank had already

begun his work of plant development, to the extent of making

numberless experiments in grafting, in the selecting of seeds from

plants showing special qualities, and even in cross-pollenation.

He had not as yet produced any striking results, to be

sure, but he was acquiring the technique that was

to stand him in such good stead in later years.

LUTHER BURBANK

7th of the year 1849. And there my childhood and
boyhood days were passed.

The town of Lancaster is one of the most pic-
turesque spots in all New England. Its scenery is
of the English type. There are rows of queenly
elms of wonderful size arching its highways and
gracefully ornamenting its meadows. The typical
New England hills and valleys; a river — the
Nashua — placidly flowing, and small wood-en-
circled lakes to give variety to the landscape; slop-
ing hills and picturesque vistas, with the usual
complement of woods and shrubs and flowers —
these things, treasured in memory, make up a pic-
ture of rare charm and beauty.

As to the town of Lancaster itself, it is one of
those old New England villages that has a per-
sonality. The life in such a town is as individual
in its way as the traditional life in Athens, or the
present-day life of Edinburgh or Tokyo or
Concord.

The picture of the life in Lancaster in the
middle of the nineteenth century is as distinctive
as a portrait by Van Dyke or a statue by Phidias.

Whoever would understand the intellectual
development of our time must comprehend in
some measure the unique and distinctive character
of such communities as Lancaster, the influence
of which is not to be measured by any numerical

[20]

Luther Burbank at the Age of Twenty-five

This picture was taken not long after Mr. Burbank at-
tained his first very notable success in plant development,
through the production of the Burbank potato. He was at this time
a highly accomplished gardener, thoroughly expert in all the
details of plant management. The following year (i875)
he was to migrate to California to take up his
permanent abode at Santa Rosa.

LUTHER BURBANK

count of inhabitants any more than the potentiali-
ties of the seed of a plant are to be predicated
from observation of its size.

Our home at Lancaster was charged with intel-
lectual activity during the years of my youth, for
it was a rendezvous for ministers, teachers, and
lecturers. My father was interested in all of the
subjects that were before the public at that time,
and we children had great advantages from the
associations that he established.

And that was indeed a notable era in the
history of civilization. It was the time in which
New England was being transformed by the mi-
gration of hosts of its best people to the new fields
of the middle and far west. In the year of my
birth, as it chanced, gold was discovered in Cali-
fornia, and the excitement in the region of Boston
I am told was greater than had probably been
known since the occasion of the memorable "tea
party."

Many of the more venturesome prepared to
cross the plains, led by the golden lure. And those
that remained were full of eager expectancy as
they waited for news from the new Eldorado.

The reminiscences of this excitement were still
in the air in my early boyhood. But before I came
to adolescence there were other burning questions
that took precedence even over the gold fever.

[22]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

The long-smouldering antislavery fires were pre-
paring to burst forth. And just at the time when
the great civic conflict was becoming more and
more obviously inevitable, an intellectual and
religious turmoil of world wide scope was evoked
by the pronouncements of Darwin and Wallace,
which seemed to shake the fundamental notions as
to man's creation, his past history, and his destiny.

These disturbing questions of national policy
and intellectual and spiritual welfare were part
and parcel of our everyday life in Lancaster dur-
ing the years when I was passing from boyhood
into adolescence.

As a child, I listened eagerly to the discussions
long before I could more than half understand
them, when on not rare occasions a visiting min-
ister or lecturer was entertained at my father's
table. Only the eager desire to hear these discus-
sions overcame the awe of a strange face that led
me always to dread the coming of a stranger even
though I longed to hear his message.

In my earliest boyhood, as my sister and
mother in later years recalled with amusement, I
was likely to shun the table when a place was
laid for a strange guest, assuring my mother that
I did not care for dinner, and running to the fields
to escape being seen by the newcomer. Even a
boy's appetite could not master bashfulness.

[23]

LUTHER BURBANK

I myself well recall that even in somewhat later
years I cringed before the kindly scrutiny of our
visitors and was dumb before their questions,
though drinking in their words with eager interest
so long as they were not addressed to me in
particular.

It was the same kind of childish timidity, which
I take it is the common endowment of children
whose mental development tends to outrun the
physical, that made my first school-going an or-
deal. I could not at first find voice to recite in the
awesome presence of half a hundred schoolmates.
And the semi-weekly recitation day, on which each
pupil was supposed to come to the platform and
declaim, was looked forward to by me with about
the same degree of anguished solicitude, I verily
believe, with which a condemned criminal con-
templates his execution day.

Fortunately a sympathetic teacher presently
permitted me to write an essay weekly in lieu of
declaiming; and after that the school days were
days of almost unalloyed pleasure.

Yet I shall always feel that I was sent to school
far earlier than was good for me. This, of course,
was no fault of my parents. They but followed the
traditions of the times. Who could blame the
New England housewife of that period, with duties
that nowadays would be thought to require a

[24]

The Purchaser of the Burbank Potato

The Burbank potato, Mr. Burbank's first important com-
mercial plant development, was purchased by J. J. Gregory, of
Marblehead, Mass. Mr. Gregory named the variety the Burbank seed-
ling. Mr. Burbank used the money thus acquired (it was only
$150) to pay his expenses to California, where he felt
that the work of plant developing could be carried
out under more advantageous conditions.

LUTHER BURBANK

coterie of servants, and with a child always at the
breast and another scarcely out of the cradle, if
she sent the entire brood of her progeny who were
old enough to walk to the shelter of the school-
room, where at least they were out of her way and
out of physical danger for the larger part of the
day?

Not, indeed, that the New England housewife
herself would have stated the matter just in this
way. She, in common with her husband, believed
that her offspring were born with the traditions of
the sin of our first ancestors weighing upon them,
and that only the most rigid intellectual discipline
combined with the most persistent spiritual teach-
ing by precept and example could release them
from that hereditary bondage.

That the doctrines of the Catechism and the
rules of the three R's should be ground into the
brain of the child while it was still at its most
plastic stage, was accepted as unchallengeable.

The belief that the schoolhouse on every hilltop
and the church in every valley constitute the land-
marks of civilization was an ingrained funda-
mental of the New England tradition.

And so youngsters who should have been in the
fields gathering flowers and revelling in the sun-
shine, drinking in the music of the birds and gain-
ing strength and health for the tasks of mature life

[26]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

were instead crowded into schoolrooms that in
winter were overheated and ill-ventilated, and
forced to the unwelcome and unnatural and harm-
ful task of scanning pages of pothooks and cram-
ming their unwilling brains with formulae, to
their permanent detriment.

Not even on Saturday was there a respite;
except that each second week school was dis-
missed at noon on that day in order that oppor-
tunity might be given in the afternoon for the
washing of the children's clothes. Even a thrifty
housewife who had a dozen or fifteen boys and
girls of graded sizes and ages to look after could
not be expected to provide more than a single suit
of underwear for each member of her brood.

So it was jestingly said, and the jest was not
altogether without its savor of reality, that it was
often necessary to put the children in barrels
while their clothes were in the wash-tub.

But in any event, the necessity for maintaining
a certain measure of cleanliness had the effect of
permitting the children to have a half holiday once
in two weeks.

And I opine that most of them were more bene-
fited by that half holiday, even though it were
spent in a barrel or its equivalent, than they would
have been by following their school tasks during
the same period.

[27]

A Simple but Important Equipment

These simple garden tools are perhaps more often in Mr.

Burbank's hands than any others. The trowel is the universal

transplanting implement; the other tools are soil-looseners and weed"

exterminators. A small garden plot could be kept in

order with these tools alone.

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

The week that was so largely devoted to school
going was rounded out on the Sabbath by a stren-
uous course in church going. There was one serv-
ice in the forenoon, Sunday school at noon, and
another service in the afternoon.

It was not considered seemly that little chil-
dren should wander in the woods or engage in any
frolicsome pastime in the interval of church going.
But our parents were peculiarly indulgent and
they sometimes permitted us to walk quietly into
the garden or orchard to look at the corn or apple-
blossoms, always with the proviso that we must
be very quiet.

THE RELIGIOUS ENVIRONMENT

It is a little difficult for the present generation
to gain a clear conception of the New England
Sabbath of the time of my boyhood; but this out-
line at least will give a general impression of its
lugubriousness, and it may readily be inferred that
the day thus given over to dolorous tasks was not
one to which the child would look forward
joyously.

Nor, for the most part, do those who were chil-
dren in that generation look back upon the Sab-
bath day experiences with satisfaction.

At least they served the purpose, however, of
supplying a church-going experience adequate for
a lifetime.

[29]

LUTHER BURBANK

Little did the good people who so sedulously
led their flocks to church and subjected them to
the bombardment of repeated sermons, suspect
that they were cultivating an attitude of mind that
would insure that the churches of succeeding dec-
ades should be nearly vacant. Indeed, they would
have been horrified had they been told such a
thing; yet I think we need not doubt that on the
whole such was the influence of their well meant
efforts.

It adds to our understanding of the curiously
archaic relation of the church to the community,
even in that comparatively recent period, to reflect
that it was obligatory in Lancaster a short time
before for each family to contribute to the support
of the Unitarian Church.

My father was not a Unitarian — regarding that
sect rather as heretical — yet he supplied sundry
loads of bricks without charge for the building of
a new Unitarian Church.

In subsequent years the law that made the
Church practically a part of the civic organism
had been repealed, and thenceforward people
were allowed to follow their own inclinations in
the matter of church contributions. But this sev-
erance of church and state, so to speak, did not so
much represent a reaction against the doctrines
of a particular church, as a general reaction

[30]

A Crude but Effective Implement

This is an exceedingly useful implement for leveling the

soil preparatory to planting seeds, and for packing the soil

about the roots of transplanted seedlings and cuttings. It is a tool

that you can make with the aid of a rake handle and a

couple of boards, and it should be part of the

equipment of even the smallest garden.

LUTHER BURBANK

against the obligatory recognition of any church
whatever.

For there had come about in the course of one
or two decades a most iconoclastic change in the
attitude of mind of the leaders of thought through-
out Christendom towards the tenets that had
hitherto been thought essential to man's spiritual
welfare.

Following the publication of Darwin's Origin
of Species in 1859, the intellectual world was in a
ferment, and nowhere was the influence of the
new ideas more quickly felt or tumultuously
argued than in New England.

I was ten years old when Darwin's iconoclastic
document was promulgated, and hence I grew
into adolescence in the very period when it was
most ardently bruited. The idea that animals and
plants have not originated through special creation
but have evolved one form from another through-
out long ages; and the logical culmination of that
idea in the inclusion of man himself in the evolu-
tionary chain — these are commonplaces to-day.
They are familiar doctrines that might find ex-
pression from every orthodox pulpit.

But in those stormy days of the sixties, such
ideas were not merely heretical — they seemed
absolutely revolutionary.

If this new view were accepted, in the minds

[32]

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LUTHER BURBANK

of a large proportion of those who expounded the
subject in the early days in New England, nothing
good would remain.

Of course the history of the spread of this new
doctrine duplicated the history of every other new
idea. For the most part, people of the elder gen-
eration could no more change their old views and
accept new ones than they could make over their
stature or the color of their eyes.

But, on the other hand, we of the younger
generation were quick to see the logicality of the
new conception, and were not hampered in its
acceptance by any cherished beliefs of a contra-
dictory kind.

Not, indeed, that we children for the most part
concerned ourselves greatly about the matter. We
went through our regular task of Bible reading
and church-going and learned our Sunday school
lessons, just as we performed other tasks that we
could not escape. But none the less were there
instilled into the very substructure of our minds
the essentials of the new manner of thinking, the
new attitude toward the world in which we live
and all its organic creatures.

And when in later years we went out into the
world and came to choose our own paths and to
adopt mental and religious garbs of our own
choosing, the subconscious influence of the new

[34]

LUTHER BURBANK

teaching everywhere made itself felt, determining
a receptive attitude of mind that presaged the new
intellectual era.

If ever there was a time when it was true that
"the old order changeth" in the profoundest ap-
plication of the words to the most sacred beliefs
of men, that time was the closing epoch of the
nineteenth century.

PLAY AND WORK

It is worth while to dwell on these less tangible
aspects of the environment of boyhood, because
their influence was probably more important than
that of many events that have to do with the reg-
ular routine of the workaday world.

As to that routine, not much need be said,
because there was little associated with it that was
individual or characteristic or that was largely
influential in determining the activities of my later
years.

The recreations of such scant leisure hours as
the New England child of this period could find
were the usual recreations of childhood. I was
rather too frail of body to enter with full enthu-
siasm into the rougher sports. But in general the
sports and amusements of the New England child
were of rather a subdued order, as became the
intellectual atmosphere in which we lived.

Coasting and skating were among our most

[36]

LUTHER BURBANK-

boisterous pastimes, and the more usual recrea-
tions included such functions as spelling-bees and
husking-bees.

I recall with a good deal of pleasure that on
one occasion I personally built a dam across a
large trout stream on our farm and flooding a
neighboring meadow so that we could have a large
skating pond. I was about nine or ten years of
age at the time, if memory serves me, and the
damming of the stream was permitted on the
plea that it would increase the crop of cranberries.
But of course what I chiefly had in mind was the
making of a place for skating, that being a sport
of which I was especially fond.

I well remember my hard work through the
October and November days — though where the
time was found in the intervals of schooling can-
not be surmised — in building the dam which later
flooded not only my father's cranberry meadows
but a great number of acres adjoining.

One of the happiest days of my life was Christ-
mas of that year, when the great glassy sheet of
ice was alive with my schoolmates and compan-
ions, darting here and there singing and shouting,
enjoying to the utmost a New England skating
party.

Incidentally, it may be recalled that the same
meadows, at another season, furnished the inter-

[38]

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r^5-as-??=-

LUTHER BURBANK

esting experience of gathering cranberries with
long handled rakes. The berries were raked from
the bushes into sacks fastened on the rake han-
dles. A single man could gather several bushels
in an hour. My brother David has recalled in
recent years the keen enjoyment I manifested in
watching this operation when but a child.

But the chief occupations of our leisure hours
were of a more prosaic character than sledding
or skating. My father was an unusually prosper-
ous farmer, but he was also a manufacturer. With
so large a family, he found it necessary to supple-
ment the resources of field and orchard.

It chanced that on the farm there was an exten-
sive bank of fine clay, and as pottery was in great
demand at that time my father engaged in its
manufacture successfully for several years. But
later there were mammoth manufacturing plants
established in the vicinity, and these created so
great a demand for building material that it was
found profitable to transform the pottery into a
brick yard.

As it required wood to burn brick, my father
began buying woodlands, ultimately acquiring
large holdings. His judgment of the value of
growing woodlands was good, and his business
prospered. He employed a large number of men
each summer to make and burn the brick, some

[40]

Setting Out Small Seedlings

Here a furrow has been made with a flat spade along the

clothesline shown in the preceding picture; and a trench is

being dug with a curved spade, the excavation being just wide enough

and deep enough to give ample room for the seedlings or plants

with roots that are to be set out along this part of the

line. For the setting out of cuttings, the narrow

trench made by the spade is sufficient.

LUTHER BURBANK

of whom were engaged during the winter in chop-
ping wood and in hauling brick to the railroad
stations or to the various towns within fifty miles
of our farm.

And of course we boys were pressed into the
service so soon as we were large enough, to lend a
hand at various of the simpler phases of brick-
making. It is recalled by my brother that I did
not undertake the turning of brick, which is a
work that is rather hard on delicate hands, with
unusual enthusiasm. But, on the other hand, my
brother Alfred and myself when quite young, per-
haps only six or eight years of age, used to drive
the oxen with loads of brick to Clinton, Lancaster
Village, Harvard, and other nearby towns, and
this part of the work I found thoroughly enjoyable.

My father also furnished much material from
the farm woodlands for the powder and paper
mills in town; and it was a great treat to me when
taking material to the manufacturers of carpet,
paper, cloth, and wire to see the wonderful proc-
esses employed in transforming the raw material
into such intricate forms of utility and beauty.

When the time came for me to take up a defi-
nite occupation, I not unnaturally turned to one
of the factories, the more willingly because of
always having had the keenest interest in things
mechanical. Indeed, the love of experimenting

[42]

Washing Seeds

That "trifles make perfection" is as true of gardening as

of any other art. One of the trifles that is often neglected by

the amateur — but never in Mr. Burbank's gardens — is the careful

cleaning of the seeds, if necessary by washing, to minimize

danger of injury from fungous growths or insects, and

to guard against the inclusion of foreign

seeds or impurities of any kind.

LUTHER BURBANK

with the making of windmills, water wheels, stat-
uary, and ornamental pottery had always been
but slightly subordinate to the love of wandering
in the woods and studying the flowers and trees
and wild creatures.

It was recalled by my elders that from earliest
boyhood I had taken delight in the investigation
of a little wooden cradle in the attic; also that an
old spinning wheel and sundry delapidated pieces
of furniture had particularly allured me.

A little later I had experimented in the back
yard with an old tea-kettle, and developed an
untiring steam whistle that aroused but probably
did not especially please the neighborhood.

In due course my mechanical experiments
continued until a miniature steam engine was per-
fected which had such practicality that I after-
wards sold it to be used in propelling a small
pleasure boat. So I might claim to have been an
innovater in the development of the now popular
motor boat. My experiments, however, were made
a few decades too early.

At the Lancaster Academy, which I attended
after gaining sufficient preliminary knowledge in
the district school, I was particularly interested in
free hand drawing, which was found very easy,
and I had always an interest in designing. So my
father, observing these propensities, concluded

[44]

Covering Seeds with Sand

After seeds are planted in the flats or elsewhere, they are

covered with a sprinkling of sand of just the right depth. A

very common mistake of the amateur gardener is to cover the seeds

too deeply. This gives the cotyledons needless work in

crowding up to the light. Sometimes it prevents the

germination of seeds that otherwise might

have grown satisfactorily.

LUTHER BURBANK

that his son be a mechanic. An uncle, Luther
Ross, was superintendent of the wood working de-
partment of the great Ames Manufacturing Com-
pany which had plants at Worcester, Groten, and
Chicopee, Mass. So a place was readily secured
for me in the factory at Worcester.

When entering on my duties I was first
employed in turning plow-rounds, for which I
received the munificent sum of 50 cents a day.

I also paid 50 cents a day for board. And as
there are seven days in the week when one must
have food and shelter and only six working days,
it is obvious that I was 50 cents in arrears at the
close of each week.

As this arrangement did not appeal to my busi-
ness instincts, I induced my uncle to grant me the
privilege of working by the piece instead of by
the day. By special activity under this arrange-
ment I was able to make two or three times as
much as formerly.

But I had not been long at the work before the
knack at contriving things mechanical came to my
aid. I conceived an improvement in the turning
lathe that would enable me, I thought, to perform
the work much more expeditiously. The inven-
tion proved a success, and with its aid I was
enabled to earn as much as sixteen dollars a day —
a very notable advance on my initial wage.

[46]

LUTHER BURBANK

The company were pleased with the invention,
and I might have remained indefinitely in their
employ at a remunerative salary. But the clouds
of dust that came from the oak lumber began to
impair my health and it was thought best to leave
the shop for a while at least. So my experience
as a manufacturer of wood products ended. My
subsequent work was to be performed in the open;
except, indeed, for a brief period when I returned
to the Ames works for temporary employment at
turning and at pattern making.

CHOOSING A PROFESSION

I was always frail of body and of delicate
physique, although wiry of build and not with-
out good powers of endurance. But shop life
further weakened me, and I had the misfortune
soon after leaving the shop to be partially over-
come by the heat, owing to a three mile run on an
exceedingly hot day to notify the local officers of
the Boston and Maine Railroad that sparks from
one of their locomotives had set my father's wood
lots on fire, and to obtain aid in controlling the
flames.

Perhaps it was this experience in particular
that led me to think of taking up medicine as a
profession. On the whole it seemed to me that
this would be most congenial, and I studied for a
year with the intention of becoming a doctor. I

[48]

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have had occasion constantly to realize in later
life how valuable this experience was. The knowl-
edge of physiology and practical hygiene thus
gained could many times be applied to the direc-
tion and interpretation of plant experiments.

It is quite possible that I should have continued
my studies and have graduated in medicine had
not the death of my father occurred at this time.
This changed all our plans. The family moved to
Groton — now Ayer — Massachusetts, where we lived
for two years and where I took up the line of work
that was to reveal an inherent bent and to lay the
foundations of future activities.

That is to say, I became a practical nurseryman
and gardener.

It was perhaps inevitable that I should have
come ultimately to take up this line of work,
because from earliest childhood my chief delight
had been found in the study of nature and in par-
ticular in the companionship of flowers.

It is recorded by those who watched tenderly
over me in my childhood that I was a quiet, seri-
ous child, whose most notable trait was a love,
amounting almost to reverence, for flowers of
every kind.

"A blossom placed in the baby hands," writes
my sister, "would always stay his falling tears.
Flowers were never destroyed by him, but if, per-

[50]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

chance, one fell to pieces his effort was always to
reconstruct it. Flowers were his first toys, and
when he was old enough to toddle about they be-
came his pets. Especially dear to his heart was a
thornless cactus (Epiphyllum) which he carried
about in his arms, until in an unhappy moment
he stumbled and fell, breaking pot and plant This
was his first great sorrow, although by persistent
effort and care the plant was made to flourish
again."

Conceivably this early association with a thorn-
less cactus may not have been without its subcon*
scious influence in determining an interest in the
development of new races of thornless cactus half
a century later.

Be that as it may, the inherent fondness for
plants that the incident illustrates was accentuated
year by year. My earliest recollections center
about the pleasure experienced in wandering in
the woods, gathering wild flowers in summer and
in winter making excursions among the walnuts,
birches, oaks, and pines that, viewed in perspec-
tive, seem to have been almost of the proportions
of Sequoias, but which visits of later years
revealed as trees of very ordinary proportions.

Even while employed in the turning factory I
spent every spare moment in wandering about the
country, and the letters home were full of refer-

[51]

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ON BOYHOOD DAYS

ences to the beauties of field and trees and flowers,
the songs of birds, the piping of the frogs, and all
the homely manifestations of animate nature that
appeal to the eye and ear that are receptive to
them.

So, as was said, it was perhaps inevitable that
sooner or later an occupation should be taken up
that would bring me hourly in contact with nature.
But it was not until my twenty-first year that I
entered specifically on the work, although of
course I had been trained in all the tasks of the
gardener and fruit grower on my father's farm
from earliest childhood.

I had all along been serving an apprenticeship
that stood me in good stead now that the work of
market gardener and seed raiser was taken up as
a business.

Yet it is not certain that I should have been led
to put this knowledge to practical use at this time
had it not been for the stimulation and fresh
enthusiasm that came from the reading of an
extraordinary book. This book was Darwin's
Animals and Plants Under Domestication. The
work was first published, it will be recalled, in
1868. It probably fell into my hands a year or so
later. It came to me with a message that was not
merely stimulating but compelling. It aroused my
imagination, gave me insight into the world of

[53]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

plant life, and developed within me an insistent
desire to go into the field and find the answer to
the problems that the book only suggested.

In particular it showed to me the plants of the
field in a new light.

I had understood from Darwin's earlier work
that all life has evolved from lower forms; that,
therefore, species are not fixed and immutable but
are plastic, and amenable to the influences of their
environment.

But I had not before understood to what an
extent species of every kind all about us vary, and
what possibilities of modification of existing forms
are contingent on such variation. From that hour
plant life presented to me a sort of challenge to
test its capacities, to investigate its traits, to invent
new ideals of growth and to endeavor to mould
the plant in accordance with these ideals.

Thus, thanks to the inspiration of Darwin's
work, my ideas were finally crystallized. The
philosophical bent inherited from my father and
the love of nature that I owed to my mother were
to work now in harmony.

Guided by the practical instincts that were
perhaps a joint heritage from both strains of my
ancestors, and the love of mechanics that was only
second to my love of nature, the inventive pro-
pensities that had found earlier vent in the manu-

[55]

LUTHER BURBANK

facture of steam engines and new turning devices
were to be applied to the plastic material of the
living plant.

Just where it all might lead no one could say.
The field I was entering had heen but little devel-
oped, but to my aroused imagination it seemed a
field of picturesque possibilities.

Meantime, of course, it was necessary that I
should gauge my enthusiasms in accordance with
the practicalities. I must make a living. So I
purchased a seventeen-acre tract of land in the
village of Lunenberg and began to raise garden
vegetables and seeds for the market.

Something of the practical success achieved
has been suggested here and there in connection
with accounts of later plant experiments. In par-
ticular, it may be recalled that I found ways of
cultivating sweet corn to meet the demands of an
early market; and it may be said that in general
my garden products were of exceptional quality.

Something has been said also as to the hybrid-
izing experiments that were performed from the
outset, including in particular the work with corn
and with various races of beans. The experiments
were by no means confined to these plants, how-
ever. I was like an explorer in a new and strange
land full of inviting pathways and alluring vistas.
I undertook to experiment in this direction and

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LUTHER BURBANK

in that, giving every moment of spare time to the
work of investigating the mysteries of plant life.

Every plant in the garden and every shrub and
tree and herb in field or woods was scrutinized
now with new interest, always with first thought
as to its tendency to variation. Where I had cas-
ually noticed before that individual flowers of a
species differed in details as to form or color or
productivity, accurate notes were now made of
such variations and the query was raised as to
whether they gave suggestion of the possibility of
developing new races under cultivation.

Some of the early experiments were full of
interest, and the knowledge gained through mak-
ing them laid the foundation for later successes
in plant development. But I had not proceeded
far before it seemed clear that such experiments as
were contemplated could not be carried out to
best advantage in the climate of New England.
My thoughts turned to California, whither two of
my half brothers had gone many years before.
What was reported of the climate of the Pacific
Coast region suggested this as the location where
such experiments as were planned might best be
carried out.

And when the first conspicuous success in the
development of a new race of plants had been
achieved, through the production of the Burbank

[58]

ON BOYHOOD DAYS

potato — with the story of which the reader is al-
ready familiar — I determined at all hazards to
move to California. With the taking of the prac-
tical steps that followed that determination, in the
year 1875, a new epoch of my life began.

— I desired to deal with
the forces of life, and to
mold the plastic forms
of living organisms —
rather than to spend
my life in classifying the
fixed and immutable phe-
nomena of dead organism.

"III!

LUTHER BURBANK— THE EARLY
YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

THE PERIOD OF BITTER STRUGGLE

WITHIN sixty days of the time when the
definite decision to go to California
was reached, I had sold my personal
property and closed out my business at Lunenburg.

The business habits that my father had incul-
cated had been so systematically followed that
there was little difficulty in closing up accounts.
The total amount of sales was found to be within
a few cents of the amount of my annual appraise-
ment. But, although I had been fairly successful
in the gardening enterprise during the three years
that it had been under way, so much money had
been spent on improvements that there remained
but a small balance to my credit. At the moment,
nothing could be realized on the farm. So in start-
ing for California I was entering on a new field,
backed by very little capital.

Meantime the celebrated Ralston failure

[VOLUME XII — CHAPTER II]

LUTHER BURBANK

occurred, an event which every old Calif ornian
remembers but too well. So depressing were the
reports of conditions in California that then came
to us that friends urged me to change my mind
about going there. I had finally decided, however,
and had made every preparation, and was not to
be deterred.

Not feeling able to pay for a sleeping berth,
which at that time was a rather unusual luxury,
I was obliged to make such shift as I could to gain
snatches of sleep. And I retain very vivid recol-
lections of the discomforts of the trip.

It is curious how some minor incident will
linger in the memory when many relatively impor-
tant ones are quite forgotten. For example, I
recall that when on rare occasions I had an entire
seat to myself, and would thus be able to curl up
on my side to gain a little sleep, the trainmen
seemed always to be hurrying through the car and
perpetually colliding with my projecting feet. And
there is scarcely an incident of the entire journey
that is more vivid in my memory than the recol-
lection of this trivial discomfort.

A generous lunch-basket had been provided,
and this served its purpose well, for the train was
sometimes delayed for an entire day far out on
the plains with no house in sight. Several times I
had the pleasure of sharing my lunch with fellow-

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passengers who would otherwise have suffered
hunger.

At that time it was not an uncommon experi-
ence for axle boxes to become heated by friction,
and then it would be necessary to make long stops
until repairs could be made. This, with numerous
unclassified delays, made the journey longer, but
perhaps not more unpleasant than was expected.
At best, at that time it took nine days to cross the
continent, and the contrast between the trains of
that period and the luxurious expresses of to-day
is notable.

EARLY DAYS IN CALIFORNIA

An inventory of my belongings on arriving at
last in California would have shown very little
except clothing, books, and garden seeds, and ten
Burbank potatoes that Mr. Gregory had allowed
me to keep when he purchased that vegetable. So
it was necessary to find employment at once.

I have said that two older brothers were living
in California. But I did not go to Tomales where
they lived, because it appeared that this region,
being close to the ocean, had a climate that was
not well adapted to my experiments. I had been
advised of conditions by letter, of course, from
time to time, and had also read such books and
articles dealing with California as could be found,
so I had rather clear notions as to what to expect.

[64]

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

I had hesitated between San Jose and Santa Rosa
as the location best suited to my purposes, and
had decided on the latter place. It has sometimes
been thought that my work might have been car-
ried on to better advantage if I had settled in the
larger town of San Jose, that being in the midst
of a great fruit-producing region; but, on the
whole, as elsewhere recorded, I have had reason
to be satisfied with the choice that was made.

In that day, however, Santa Rosa was but a
small village, offering comparatively few attrac-
tions. It had not even a sidewalk. There were
no vineyards, no orchards, no ornamental trees.
There were wheat fields in the surrounding coun-
tiy, and these gave opportunity for work in the
summer with harvesting and threshing crews. For
the rest, about the only available employment was
the driving of teams of oxen or mules in breaking
the soil with gang-plows.

Unfortunately my physical strength was not
adequate to either of these tasks. So I found
myself almost without means, in a strange land,
far from home and friends, and there was no
obvious way in which to enter on the specific work
that was contemplated. For a time it was even
difficult to earn enough to meet immediate needs.

It was necessary to give up all thought of
entering immediately on the work of gardening.

[65]

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ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

For the time being I must seek work wherever it
could be found, and do any odd job that offered.
I recall that on one occasion I heard that help was
wanted on a building then in construction, and
on applying was promised a job if I would furnish
my own shingling hatchet. I spent my last dollar
in purchasing one, and on returning found to my
bitter disappointment that the job had been given
to another applicant.

This was but one of a good many episodes that
were well calculated to dampen enthusiasm, and
cause me to question whether I had acted wisely
in leaving New England. Yet I doubt whether I
ever regretted my decision. For the spirit of
dogged persistency and of obstinate effort in the
face of difficulties is a heritage that the pioneer
breed of New England transmits almost unfail-
ingly. Whatever the son of Puritan ancestors may
lack, he is almost sure to have a full endowment
of the basal instinct of sticking to it.

There were times, however, when, whether or
not the spirit faltered, my physical constitution
was in jeopardy. In the fall of 1876, I secured
work in the nursery of W. H. Pepper, at Petaluma
— one of the first nurseries in California, estab-
lished in 1852 — where I worked throughout the
winter and into the following spring. Here I oc-
cupied a room over the steaming hothouse at

[67]

LUTHER BURBANK

night, and worked in a damp soil by day, until my
strength gave out, and I was stricken with fever
and returned to Santa Rosa very ill. But for the
kindly ministrations of a good neighbor who, see-
ing my need, furnished me fresh milk without
hope of reward, it is doubtful whether I should
have pulled through. These were indeed dark days.
THE LAND OF PROMISE

Yet even in this time of trial I was not for a
moment oblivious to the natural advantages and
beauties of the country to which I had come, not-
withstanding the inhospitable reception. Letters
of the period, as preserved by my mother and sis-
ter, are filled with enthusiasm over the marvels
of the new land. I may quote one of these letters
as showing the impression that California made
on me, and the opportunities that it appeared to
offer for carrying out my treasured project, if ever
means could be found to make a beginning.

"Santa Rosa is situated," I wrote, "in a mar-
velously fertile valley containing one hundred
square miles. I firmly believe from what I have
seen that this is the chosen spot of all the earth
as far as nature is concerned. The climate is per-
fect; the air is so sweet that it is a pleasure to
drink it in; the sunshine is pure and soft.

"The mountains which gird the valley are
lovely; then the valley is covered with majestic

[68]

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LUTHER BURBANK

oaks placed as no human hand could arrange
them for beauty. I cannot describe it. (I almost
cry for joy when I look upon the lovely valley
from the hillsides.)

"California's gardens are filled with tropical
plants, palms, figs, oranges, vines, etc. Great rose
trees, thirty feet in height, loaded with every color
of buds and blossoms, in clusters of twenty to
sixty, like a cluster of grapes (I would like to pile
a bushel of them in your aprons) climb over the
houses. English ivy fills large trees, and flowers
are everywhere.

"Do you suppose I am not pleased to see fuch-
sias in the front yards, twelve feet high, and loaded
with various colors of blossoms? Veronica trees,
geranium trees; the birds singing and everything
like a beautiful spring day.

"The sweet Gum tree of Australia grows here
seventy-five feet high in five years; it is a beauti-
ful tree. Honeysuckles, snow berries, etc., grow
wild on the mountains. There are so many plants
more beautiful that they are neglected.

"I improve all my time in walking in every
direction from the city; but have seen no place
which nature has not made perfectly lovely.

"I took a long walk to-day and found enough
curious plants in a wild spot of about an acre to
set a botanist wild.

[70]

LUTHER BURBANK

"I found the wild Yam which I hunted for so
much in Massachusetts, also the yerba buena, a
vine which has a pleasant taste like peppermint.
(I send you a few leaves.) I also found a nut that
no one has seen before (have planted it), and/^.v-
eral (to me) curious plants. I mean to get a piece
of land (hire or buy) and plant it, then I can do
other work just the same."

The intention to hire or buy a piece of land
was not realized for a long term of months after
it was thus confidently expressed. But the time
came, after weary waiting, when it was found pos-
sible to hire a few acres. Then, although working
at carpentry during the day, I was able to devote
the long summer evenings to preparation for start-
ing a small nursery.

I had come to California in October, 1875, and
it was not until the autumn of the following year
that the start in the line of work that had been
planned was thus tentatively made. And even
then my time of trial was by no means over. For,
as has been said, no capital was available with
which to push my enterprise, and it was necessary
to feel the way, step by step.

To be sure I could have appealed to my broth-
ers, and they would very gladly have helped me,
but I was averse to doing this, both from an inher-
ent sensitiveness about money, which is almost as

[72]

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LUTHER BURBANK

universal a New England heritage as the Puritan
conscience itself, and because I knew that my rel-
atives, in common with such other people as knew
of my project, were skeptical as to the practicality
of such experiments in plant development as were
contemplated.

Such skepticism was natural enough on the
part of practical men, for the things that I hoped
to do ran counter to all common experience. To
think of changing the form and constitution of liv-
ing things in a few years seemed grotesque even
to many people who believed in the general doc-
trine of evolution.

It was not generally admitted at that time that
the plants under cultivation had been conspicu-
ously modified by the efforts of man.

And even those exceptional botanists who
believed that the cultivated plants owed their
present form to man's efforts were prone to
emphasize the fact that the plants had been for
centuries under cultivation, and to question
whether the modifications that could be effected
in a single generation would have any practical
significance.

So it seemed to most people who knew of my
enterprise that it was a half-mad project and one
that was foredoomed to failure.

Of course I had only enthusiasm, backed by

[74]

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LUTHER BURBANK

the tentative results of early experiments in Mas-
sachusetts, to offer in response to such criticisms.
So it seemed best to trust to my own resources, so
far as possible, and prove my case according to
my own method.

I would not be understood, however, as saying
that my brothers did not give me friendly co-op-
eration. On the contrary they were, as suggested,
ready to extend a helping hand, and their aid was
sought at the outset in the matter of the propaga-
tion of the Burbank potato, the ten tubers of which
constituted, in my judgment, my most important
tangible asset.

The ten potatoes were planted on my brother's
place; and the entire product of the first season
was saved and planted, so that by the end of the
second season the stock of potatoes was large
enough to offer for sale.

The sale of the Burbank potato helped out a
little, but did not at first bring a large return. Not-
withstanding the very obvious merits of this
potato, time was required to educate people to
appreciate it. They were accustomed to a red
potato, and a white one, even though larger,
smoother, and more productive, did not seem at
first a suitable substitute. But in the course of
time the Burbank potato made its way, as has else-
where been related, until it became the leading

[76]

»

s£asj«i§5- =;•

LUTHER BURBANK

potato of the Pacific Coast. Long before this,
however, I had ceased to grow the potato. It was
only during the first few years, before its cultiva-
tion became general, that I could profitably grow
it for seed purposes.

For the rest, I began my nursery business at
Santa Rosa by raising such fruits and vegetables
as gave promise of being immediately acceptable
to the people of the vicinity. At that time the pos-
sibilities of California as a fruit center were for
the most part vaguely realized, and it was first
necessary to educate the Californians themselves
to a recognition of the fact that in the soil and
climate of their state were the potentialities of
greater wealth than had ever been stored in the
now almost depleted gold mines.

Once that lesson had been learned, there would
be no great difficulty about disposing of the fruit,
for the railways either built or projected insured
facilities for transportation.

As to the latter point, however, the conditions
were very different from what they now are. The
refrigerator car had not come into vogue, and the
possibility of transporting fresh fruits across the
continent at a reasonable cost seemed remote. So
it was natural that such fruits as the prune and
the olive were the ones that chiefly attracted at-
tention. Their product could be transported any-

[78]

S!

LUTHER BURBANK

where, and there was an established market that
was practically inexhaustible.

But, as already intimated, the region about
Santa Rosa at the time of my coming was pre-
eminently a wheat country, and the farmers in
general were far more interested in cereals than
in fruit of any kind. It was only after the wheat
crops began to fail, through exhaustion of the soil
for the special nutrients that this cereal demands,
that the thoughts of the farming population in
general could be directed toward fruit culture.

It is necessary to make this explanation
because nowadays everyone thinks of California
as pre-eminently a fruit country; and so it would
not be obvious, without this elucidation, why one
could not start in the nursery business at Santa
Rosa, in the year 1876, and hope for immediate
patronage and a reasonable return for his labors.

But even if the market had been more certain,
it would doubtless have been difficult for me to
get a start, because fruit trees cannot be brought
to a condition of bearing, or even to a stage where
cions for grafting are available, in a few weeks.
And I had neither capital nor credit, being vir-
tually a stranger in a strange land.

So it was necessary for me to continue to gain
a livelihood by working at carpentry, in which
vocation I had now established a sufficient repu-

[80]

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LUTHER BURBANK

tation to insure me pretty steady work. But every
cent that I could earn, beyond the barest cost of
maintenance, was put into stock for my prospec-
tive nursery; and, as has been said, the evening
hours after the day's work with the hammer was
over were devoted to the culture of seedlings.

The tedious and almost disheartening char-
acter of the task of establishing myself as a prac-
tical nurseryman at Santa Rosa may perhaps be
illustrated about as tangibly as otherwise could
be done by the citation of memoranda from old
account books, which show that the total sales of
nursery products in 1877, the first year that my
nursery was supposed to be in operation,
amounted to just $15.20. The products that
brought this munificent return are listed as "Nurs-
ery stock and ornamental and flowering plants."

The following year, 1878, the total return from
the nursery sales was $84.

The third year the sales amounted to $353.28.
The fourth year they came to $702. And it was
not until 1881, when the nursery had been fo** five
years in operation, that the aggregate returns from
the sale of its products of all descriptions passed
the thousand dollar mark. The specific figure, in
1881, was $1,112.69.

The figures thus baldly presented tell their own
story. They show that the nursery business in

[82]

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LUTHER BURBANK

California thirty-five years ago was in far differ-
ent condition from what it is to-day. And it does
not require much imagination to connect with the
figures a story of hardship and privation, and of
unrewarded effort, that spelled discouragement
for the would-be plant developer.

Yet, on the other hand, the figures are sus-
ceptible of a more cheerful interpretation. If we
regard percentages, instead of aggregate dollars,
it will at once be manifest that the record shows
steady progress with a cumulative tendency.
Eleven hundred dollars is not a large return for
the output of a nursery, but it is a relatively tre-
mendous advance on $15. And when I add that
the return for the succeeding year went forward
again by about 300 per cent., it will be clear that
my efforts were fast gaining recognition, and that
the foundations were being laid for a thoroughly
successful nursery business.

Not to dwell exclusively on the darker side of
the picture, let me say that within ten years the
quality of the trees and the reliability of the stock
in general of the Burbank Nursery had become
so widely known that I was selling more than
$16,000 worth of stock per year. In the light of
this ultimate prosperity, the privations of the ear-
lier years may very well be minimized, even
though they cannot quite be forgotten.

[84]

LUTHER BURBANK

There are many incidents of that early period
of probation, when I was struggling to establish
myself as a nurseryman, in order that ultimately
I might take up my scheme for plant development
on a large scale, that would have a measure of
interest and would not be without importance in
their bearing on my later work. But I content
myself with the narration of a single incident,
partly because it has to do with an event that was
at the time of momentous importance to me, inas-
much as it gave me a much needed monetary
return, and at the same time served to advertise
my work; and partly because it illustrates in
detail the possibility of rapidly laying the founda-
tions for an orchard, and hence may be of value
to some would-be plant experimenters.

TWENTY THOUSAND PRUNE SEEDLINGS

The incident in question has to do with the
production of twenty thousand prune trees, well
rooted and ready to transplant for permanent
location in an orchard, in a single season.

It was in the fourth year of my attempt at the
development of a nursery business at Santa Rosa
—that is to say, in the season of 1881 — that I pro-
duced the twenty thousand prune trees in response
to a "hurry order," and in so doing fortified a rep-
utation for reliability and resourcefulness that my
earlier work had begun to establish.

[86]

LUTHER BURBANK

The order for twenty thousand prunes was
given by Mr. Warren Button, a wealthy merchant
and banker of Petaluma, and later of San Fran-
cisco, who had conceived a sudden interest in
prune-growing and wished to undertake it on a
large scale wtih the least possible delay. Mr. But-
ton had seen something of my work, and he came
to me in March, 1881, and asked if I could furnish
him twenty thousand prune trees ready to set out
the coming fall.

At first thought I was disposed to answer that
no one on earth could furnish twenty thousand
fruit trees on an order given in March for deliv-
ery in the fall of the same year. But, after think-
ing the matter over for a few minutes, I decided
that the project was not quite so hopeless as it
seemed.

If almond seedlings were used for stock, and
prune buds June-budded on these stocks, the thing
might be accomplished.

Mr. Button agreed to furnish what financial aid
was needed during the summer to pay for help
and to purchase the required number of almonds
for planting. So the bargain was closed, and I
entered on the task with enthusiasm. What made
the project seem feasible was the knowledge of
the fact that almonds, under proper conditions,
sprout almost at once like corn, unlike nearly all

[88]

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LUTHER BURBANK

other stone fruits. I estimated that if almonds
were secured at once, and bedded in coarse sand
for sprouting, they would furnish seedlings that
could be planted in nursery rows in time for June
budding.

There was no difficulty about securing the
almonds for planting, so the enterprise was almost
instantly under way. In addition to the two acres
of land which were then available in my nursery,
I rented five additional acres; and a large number
of men were engaged to plant the almonds in
nursery rows as soon as they began to sprout.

The almonds were spread on a well-drained
bed of creek-sand and covered with coarse burlap
cloth, which in turn was covered with a layer of
sand about an inch in depth. In this way we could
examine the almonds without any trouble, by lift-
ing one end of the cloth.

The seeds commenced to sprout in less than
fourteen days. Those which sprouted were care-
fully removed and planted in the nursery rows;
the others were covered again, and each day more
and more would be found sprouting.

The almonds were planted about four inches
apart in the rows, the rows about four feet apart,
on a piece of land adjoining the creek — a plot now
covered with fine residences, and known as
"Ludwig's Addition".

[90]

LUTHER BURBANK

They began showing growth above ground in a
short time, and the ground was very carefully
cultivated.

By the time the buds in my prune orchard were
ready for grafting, the young almond-trees were
also ready. Toward the last of June, and in July
and August, a large force of budders were
employed in placing the French prune buds on the
almond-stalks.

After about ten days, when the buds had thor-
oughly united with the stalk, the tops of the young
trees were broken over about eight inches from
the ground; great care being exercised not to
break them entirely off, but only to break the top
down and still keep it alive.

If the top is broken or cut entirely off, the
young trees are about certain to die. This is a
mistake which many nurserymen make in trying
to grow June buds, but by bending the tops over
and leaving them on, none of the trees die, and
the buds start much better than by any other plan.

Soon the young prune buds began to burst
forth. These were carefully tied up alongside
the stalk, and when they were a foot or more in
height the old almond top was wholly cut away.

By December first, about 19,500 of the trees
were ready for the planter; the others were fur-
nished the next season.

[92]

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

Mr. Dutton was greatly pleased, as he had been
told by all other nurserymen that it was impos-
sible to produce trees in eight months, and he was
very anxious to get a prune orchard at once. By
systematic and energetic work we were able to
meet his exceptional needs. Never before or since,
I believe, was a 200-acre orchard developed in a
single season.

SUCCESS AT LAST

As suggested, the feat of producing the twenty
thousand prunes served to advertise my work
locally. Meantime the reputation for dependable-
ness of the Santa Rosa nursery products had been
greatly extending, in a very modest way to be
sure, yet with cumulative effect.

Also the general knowledge that prunes con-
stituted a profitable crop was spreading, and about
this time the demand for prune trees became very
great. Naturally my reputation as a producer of
prune stock was enhanced by the demonstration
given with the twenty thousand young trees.
Prunes that had been grown in smaller lots gave
equal satisfaction to purchasers in various regions.
Great pains had been taken that no tree should
leave my nursery that was not exactly true to
name, and in all respects precisely as represented.
And now I began to reap the benefits of the repu-
tation thus established.

[93]

14

§ §

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

Year by year the reputation of the Burbank
Nursery spread, until people were coming from a
hundred miles or more away, and the number of
would-be purchasers was so great that sometimes
there was quite a crowd of them in my dooryard
waiting their turn.

The quest of prune trees became such a hobby
that it came to be the current jest when anyone
was asked for to respond: "Well, if you do not
find him in town, you will probably find him at
Burbank's Nursery waiting for some trees."

In course of time more land was needed, so I
purchased the four-acre place in the very heart
of Santa Rosa which was in future to be my home
and the seat of many of my most important
experiments.

This place, which has since become so well-
known, was then a neglected, run-down plot which
had been on the market for many years. The land
was about as poor as could be found. Many
attempts had been made to cultivate it, but a crop
had not been grown upon it for a long time.

Such a plot of land did not seem to offer great
inducements for a nurseryman. But I had a plan
in mind that I thought would transform it.

My first move was to place tiles under the
whole tract at a depth of four feet, thus draining
the land which had at one time been the bottom

[95]

LUTHER BURBANK

of a pond. At the same time the ground was care-
fully graded. Then, as manure was cheap near
by, I had 1,800 loads of it put on the four acres.
The manure was spread so thickly that it was
impossible to plow it under without the aid of
several men, who followed the plow and pitched
the manure into furrows as the plowing proceeded.

Further details as to the method of tillage and
the preparation of the soil have been given in an
earlier chapter and need not be repeated here.
But I advert to the subject because I wish to
emphasize the possibility of transforming very
poor land into land of exceptional fertility. The
would-be plant developer who has small financial
resources may take a lesson from this experience,
and let ingenuity take the place of money.

To what extent intelligent manipulation of land
may be rewarded is illustrated in the immediate
sequel. For in the spring following the season in
which the new land was tiled and fertilized, it was
planted to fruit trees, and the year following
enough nursery stock was sold from half the land
to pay for the entire place and all the improve-
ments that had been made.

So I had a four-acre plot of the finest land,
located near the business center of Santa Rosa,
that had been paid for with ingenuity and knowl-
edge without making any drain on my purse.

[96]

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LUTHER BURBANK

This same plot of land, modified in places by
treating with sand to make it suitable for raising
bulbs, has doubtless grown a greater number of
varieties of plants from regions near and remote
than were ever elsewhere grown on any four acres
of the earth's surface.

THE LONG-DEFERRED PROJECT

By about the year 1884, then, I was thoroughly
established with a nursery business that gave me
a sure income of ten thousand dollars or more per
year, and nothing more was required than to con-
tinue along the lines of my established work to
insure a life of relative ease and financial
prosperity.

But nothing was farther from my thoughts than
the permanent following of the routine business
of the nurseryman. At no stage of the work in
California had I given up the expectation of devot-
ing the best years of my life to plant experimen-
tation and the development of new races of use-
ful fruits and vegetables, and of beautiful flowers.
And now the time seemed to have arrived when
the long-deferred project could be put into
execution.

So from the very hour when my nursery busi-
ness had come to be fully established I began
laying plans for giving it up.

The practical work in the nursery itself had,

[98]

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

of course, furnished a most valuable schooling. I
had learned the technique of growing seedlings,
and grafting, and the general routine of practical
plant culture. And this obviously was knowledge
of a kind that would be of inestimable importance
when I came to deal with rare exotics and with
new forms of plant life. The practical knowledge
of how best to nurse a tender seedling has had its
full share in the furtherance of the successes of
later years.

Meantime, I had gained a comprehensive
knowledge of the native plants of California,
through having collected their seeds and bulbs for
Eastern and foreign seedsmen.

At about this time there was an interest in the
native plants of California, and many nurserymen
were anxious to give them a trial. During those
years when my own nursery business was only
formative I eked out an income — in intervals of
carpenter work — by gathering seeds and bulbs on
orders from various Eastern and foreign firms. In
the course of this work I made various trips to
the surrounding territory. On two occasions, in
1880 and in 1881, 1 visited the region of the geysers,
which was found to be a productive locality for
new material. And everywhere I went careful
study was made of the vegetation, both with an
eye to the immediate collection of seeds and bulbs,

[99]

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

and for future reference in connection with the
projected work.

The knowledge thus gained served well in
later years in suggesting material for hybridizing
experiments.

Moreover, the work of collecting, preserving,
and shipping seeds, plants, and bulbs taught prac-
tical lessons that were of infinite importance later
in the instruction of my own collectors in foreign
lands, who gathered the materials that had so large
a share in the production of new plant forms that
finally appeared in my experiment gardens.

I should have loved dearly to extend the
botanizing explorations to still wider territories,
and after my nursery business had come to be
fully established, about the year 1884, it would
have been quite feasible to do so.

The work was so organized that it might
readily have been left to assistants for periods of
a year or more, during which I could have trav-
eled all over the world and observed for myself
the plant products that seemed to invite importa-
tion.

But to have done this would have been to
break in on the plan of the projected life work
that had already been to some extent interrupted
for a period of about eight years, during which I
had found it impossible to carry out new experi-

[101]

LUTHER BURBANK

ments, except on a limited scale, and in intervals
of arduous practical duties. Longer delay was not
to be thought of. I was eager to take up the pro-
jected work, and it was not deferred for a season
longer than was absolutely necessary.

Even before I could see my way to the aban-
donment of the practical work of the nurseryman,
projects were in hand that were preparing the way
for the new activities. In particular, I had sent to
Japan to secure seeds and cuttings of a great
variety of fruits. It seemed certain that I could
better afford to hire collectors in foreign lands to
secure material than to go to foreign lands in per-
son in quest of it.

The first consignment of Japanese seeds and
seedlings reached me November 5, 1884. In prep-
aration for their coming I had purchased the
Dimmick place and prepared my experiment
grounds a few months earlier. And when the
consignment was in hand, with the representatives
of exotic species of fruits, I felt that a new era
had begun for me, and that the long frustrated
plans were about to find realization.

The following year, so well had the nursery
business prospered, I was able to purchase a farm
at Sebastopol, seven miles away from Santa Rosa,
where the conditions were more favorable for the
growing of some types of plants.

[102]

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LUTHER BURBANK

The second consignment from Japan, including
the plum, whose story has elsewhere been told in
detail, came Dec. 20, 1885. The place at Sehastopol
where they were to be planted and nurtured was
purchased eight days later. And with this pur-
chase the project of devoting a lifetime to the
work of plant experimentation was fairly and
finally inaugurated. For the Sebastopol place,
with its eighteen acres, was not purchased for use
as a practical nursery, but solely as an experiment
garden.

With the development of the Sebastopol place,
a new phase of lifework began.

Thenceforward my time was divided between
the experiment garden at Santa Rosa and that at
Sebastopol, and upon one place or the other all
my experiments in plant development were to be
performed.

An interest in the nursery business was re-
tained for two or three years more, to give money
to carry out the initial stages of the new experi-
ments; for of course it could not be expected that
new varieties of fruits and flowers would spring
into existence in a single season. Nor could in-
stant purchasers be found for them if they had
been thus magically produced. But from the time
when the place at Sebastopol was purchased, the
die was cast, and it was determined in future my

[104]

ON EARLY YEARS IN SANTA ROSA

energies were to be devoted to the work of plant
development — the work that had been projected,
and at which a beginning had been made back
in Massachusetts, and the hope of continuing
which had been the incentive to persistent efforts
during the period of stress and privation.

— An inventory of my belong-
ings on my arrival in California
would have shown very little
excepting clothing, books, gar-
den seeds and ten Burbank
potatoes that Mr. Gregory had
allowed me to keep when he
purchased that vegetable.

Luther Burbank at the Age of Fifty

Thanks to good heredity, abstemious habits, and out of
door living, Mr. Burbank was a young man at. fifty, as this pic-
ture will testify. Although seemingly of rather delicate physique, he
has always enjoyed a large measure of good health, and
his supply of working energy is unlimited.

LUTHER BURBANK-HIS
PATIENCE REWARDED

THE PERIOD OF GREAT ACHIEVEMENT

THE purchase of the farm at Sebastapol was
made, as recorded in the preceding chap-
ter, on the 28th of December, 1885. As
this was to be the important testing ground for
the chief companies of my trees and flowers, it
may perhaps be of interest to describe somewhat
in detail the farm itself and its topographical sur-
roundings. In particular an idea should be given
of the indigenous flora of the region, because many
of the wild species were utilized in experiments of
great interest and sometimes of importance.

The picture thus presented of the environment
of the work will serve, perhaps, to give a clearer
understanding of some of its details.

The plot of land at Sebastopol was known at
the time of its purchase as the Gold Ridge farm,
and that name has been retained, although the
place has usually been referred to in the preceding

[VOLUME XII— CHAPTER III]

LUTHER BURBANK

pages merely as the experiment farm at
Sebastopol.

The farm has a gradual and gentle slope toward
the Santa Rosa valley. It is undulating in con-
tour, and its chief slopes face the east. The soil is
sandy, no doubt part of one of many great sand
dunes piled up by the waves of the Pacific Ocean
and the winds in past ages.

On this place there is a great variety of soils
and of degrees of moisture. Some parts of the
land are so moist that the water seeps up to the
surface throughout the season, and the remainder
is so loose and friable that moisture may be found
all through the summer even six months after any
rain has fallen upon it.

NATIVE PLANTS

At the time the place was purchased about two-
thirds of it was covered with white and tan oaks,
the native Douglas spruce, manzanita, cascara
sagrada, hazel and madrona, while beneath the
trees grew brodiaeas, calochortus, cynoglossum,
wild peas, fritillarias, orchids, sisyrinchiums — yel-
low and blue — and numerous other wild plants
and shrubs.

During the first few years following the clear-
ing away of this forest many species of clover
wholly new to me made their appearance, prob-
ably in all nearly or quite twenty species. There

[108]

« 2 g^Spa

sifi if ii§

LUTHER BURBANK

was also an abundance of alfilaria — Erodium
moschatum — a Chilean plant, belonging to the
geranium family. This and the clovers growing
in the winter made a splendid crop to turn under
in the spring, thus adding to the soil much nitro-
gen— among the most expensive of all fertilizing
materials.

Later, five acres were added on one side of this
place, and again three acres on another — of very
similar soil — making now eighteen acres closely
covered with numerous species of plants and trees
used in the various experiments.

This farm is one of the most sightly places in
the vicinity. In the middle foreground lies the
broad Santa Rosa Valley with the city of Santa
Rosa in the distance; and almost under one's feet
is Sebastopol. Mount Saint Helena looms up
grandly in the east some thirty miles away, more
than four thousand feet in altitude. Most of the
hills and mountains of the region are wooded with
Douglas spruce, various oaks, madronas, and man-
zanitas. Along the streams, through the valley,
grow Oregon maples, alders, ash, willows, and
hawthorns.

Looking over the Valley of Santa Rosa one sees
one of the most prosperous communities any-
where to be found. In the early spring, great
apple and prune orchards lighten the valley with

[110]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

a sheet of bloom; and later, fields of hops here
and there, with the vineyards along the foothills,
make a most enchanting view. The floor of the
valley is like one great park dotted here and there
with giant oaks, each one of a different form;
here, perhaps, a hundred in a cluster, there a half
dozen, artistically grouped as if by a landscape
gardener. These are mostly white oak— though in
some parts of the valley there are numerous
patches of the black oak — and along the streams
the mountain live oak.

In the distant hills north and east are a great
variety of evergreen and deciduous trees and
shrubs among the most common of which are the
following Conifers: the digger pine, sugar pine,
the yellow pine, the knob-cone pine, Coast red-
wood, incense cedar, MacNab cypress, Goven
cypress, and nutmeg pine.

Some of the other evergreen and deciduous
trees growing in this immediate vicinity are : Ore-
gon maple, box elder, Oregon ash, California buck-
eye, white alder, red alder, tan-bark oak, white
oak, Pacific post oak, black oak, blue oak, maul
oak, mountain live oak, tree elder, bush elder,
cottonwood, bayberry, madrona, golden chestnut,
Coast manzanita, and common manzanita.

There are ornamental shrubs in profusion;
among others, the rose bay, Azalea, June berry,

[in]

Watsonias at Sebastopol

At Sebastopol there is opportunity for flower beds on a

somewhat more expensive scale than at Santa Rosa, as this

picture suggests. But we find the same indiscriminate mixture of

plant tribes, — in this case beds of Watsonias lying

alongside a group of orchard trees.

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

Judas tree, thornapple, western sweet-scented
shrub, California lilac, shrubby lilac, Coast lilac,
mahala mats (trailing or creeping lilac), buck-
thorn, cascara, flowering dog-wood, common dog-
wood, choke cherry, meadow-sweet, wild apple,
burning bush, poison oak, hazel, black willow,
creek willow, velvet willow, snow-berry, oso berry,
chamissal, and salal.

Of vines and bearers of small fruit or of hand-
some flowers there are the wild grape, Oregon
grape, mahonia, huckleberry, bilberry, low goose-
berry, straggly gooseberry, canon gooseberry, flow-
ering currant, compact flowering currant, tree
poppy, modest shrub, Labrador tea, redwood rose,
California rose, Sonoma rose, silk-tassel tree, bear
brush, yerba santa, bush monkey flower, mistletoe,
Dutchman's pipe, salmon berry, raspberry and
thimble berry.

These glimpses of the indigenous flora of the
immediate vicinity of the new experiment farm
will serve to give an idea of the abundance of
interesting native material, for the most part hith-
erto quite untouched by the plant experimenter,
that awaited investigation.

ANTICIPATIONS

Had I felt at liberty to follow my own inclina-
tions, paying no heed to the question of practical
monetary returns, I could have found abundant

[113]

LUTHER BURBANK

material for the investigations of a lifetime with-
out going outside the bounds of the Gold Ridge
Farm itself.

My own tastes would have led me to devote the
major part of the time to the investigation of flow-
ering plants and the development of flowers hav-
ing hitherto unrevealed qualities of form and color
and odor. But it was obvious that one could not
hope to make a living in this way. I knew that in
order to have even a fair prospect of securing a
monetary return that would enable me to keep up
my work, once the nursery was abandoned, it
would be necessary to produce marketable fruits.

In this field alone could one hope to find a
ready sale for new plant developments, however
striking or interesting from a scientific standpoint
the results of experiments in other lines might
prove.

And of course the indigenous wildings of the
immediate environment offered only scant mate-
rial for the immediate production of new fruits
of practical value. As a matter of course one must
depend for material largely on the orchard fruits
already under cultivation. These had been edu-
cated for countless generations. Doubtless most
horticulturists regarded them as perfected beyond
hope of conspicuous further development. But in
my view what had been done with these fruits

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might better be regarded as a proof of their ca-
pacity for further education.

In particular, I hoped, with the new material
then being gathered from foreign countries, to be
able to undertake hybridizing experiments that
might reasonably be expected to produce alto-
gether novel results.

How fully this expectation was justified, the
reader is already aware. But it should be
recalled that the things which now seem axiomatic
because they have been accomplished had quite a
different aspect from the standpoint of the year
1885. Hybridizations that have now been shown
to be ready of accomplishment were then regarded
as quite impossible by all horticulturists who gave
the matter a thought.

Indeed, as has been pointed out, the general
attitude among botanists and horticulturists every-
where was one of profound skepticism as to the
possibility of developing modified races by hybrid-
izations, or, indeed, by any means whatever within
limited periods of time.

My own faith in the possibility of developing
new races through crossing and selection had
never faltered, however, since my earlier studies
had given a clear view of the range of variation of
plants both under natural conditions and under
cultivation. And it may be taken as adequate

[116]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

proof of confidence that I purchased experiment
farms and sent far and wide for hybridizing mate-
rial at the very earliest moment when my financial
condition made such action possible.

Nor should it be understood that I had by any
means entirely neglected experimental tests during
the period of my nursery experience. On the con-
trary, I had at all stages of this experience devoted
as much time as I could spare to tests in cross-
fertilizing and in selection among the various nurs-
ery products. These had served to give an expert
knowledge of the results that might be expected
from plant improvement.

Moreover, tentative results had been attained
that gave support to the most sanguine expecta-
tions.

ORCHARD AND GARDEN MATERIALS

Indeed, it was largely as the result of these
experiments in selection that my nursery orchards
had come to be of such quality as to command
the attention of an ever widening circle of fruit
growers.

I dealt with a very wide range of fruit-bearing
and flowering plants, and although no new plants
had been produced that could be compared with
those of a later period, my nursery had been
stocked with the very best existing varieties of
forty or fifty different groups of fruits and flowers,

[117]

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ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

and all had been submitted to careful compara-
tive tests until those that remained were of excep-
tional quality, and thousands of new productions
were under way that were undeveloped.

The nursery catalog issued in 1887 — the year
before I sold my nursery preparatory to devoting
my entire time to the experiment gardens then in
an advanced stage of preparation — comprises 24
pages, and preserves the list of the exceptional
varieties of horticultural plants that had been se-
lected and developed and supplied the material
for continuance and extension of the experiments
on a larger scale on the test ground at Sebastopol.

Here were orchard fruits in great variety; small
fruits of the choicest types; nuts of several species,
including chestnut, walnut, and pecan; garden
vegetables, including asparagus and rhubarb; a
long list of deciduous ornamental trees and shrubs,
and an even longer list of evergreens; vines and
trailing shrubs in interesting variety; and elab-
orate series of roses, hedge-plants, bulbous plants,
and bedding plants in general. All these had been
collected and selected and prepared for this very
purpose.

With such materials at hand, it was obviously
possible to continue the work of developing new
varieties on an expansive scale so soon as the
grounds were ready. Moreover, as we have

[119]

LUTHER BURBANK

(already seen, shipments of plants from Japan
began to be received even before the Sebastopol
farm was purchased.

MATERIAL FROM ABROAD

The year following the purchase of the farm,
grafts of twelve varieties of New Zealand apples
were imported. And from this time forward I was
constantly in receipt of shipments of seeds or bulbs
or cions of rare or interesting plants from all
regions of the world.

Association was established with foreign col-
lectors who made a business of securing plants.
And as the work became known in the course of
succeeding years, amateur collectors everywhere
were kind enough to send me materials, so that the
experiment gardens became a testing ground for
seeds of many thousands of species that doubtless
had never before been grown in America.

Much of this is already known to the reader of
the early chapters of this work, but the facts are
emphasized anew because an understanding of
them is essential to the comprehension of the work
that was being carried forward.

The very essence of the new method was to
bring together, through hybridization, plant strains
that had been long separated, making possible the
recombination of hereditary factors in such a way
as to bring out submerged racial traits.

[120]

fey*

Days of Preparation at Sebastopol

Here the ground has been carefully prepared, and the
seeds planted in the straightest possible rows. Note the label-
stakes to indicate different varieties. Note also the length of the rows,
in contrast with the more compact flower beds
of the Santa Rosa garden.

LUTHER BURBANK

Obviously such an attempt requires the co-
operation of collectors living in widely separated
regions. I wish to pay especial tribute to the faith-
ful service that has been rendered both by pro-
fessional collectors and by amateurs who knew
me by reputation only and who had no thought
of reward beyond the satisfaction of aiding in a
work calculated to benefit humanity at large.

Through these collectors I have frequently
obtained wild plants the economic value of which
had never been suspected, and which might other-
wise have remained unknown, which, when com-
bined with plants already in hand proved of ines-
timable value in the development of new varieties
of great scientific interest or of practical import-
ance.

Often a certain line of experiment has been
carried to the point where further progress seemed
impossible unless the plant under cultivation could
be effectively crossed with some new closely re-
lated species. And, curiously enough, just when a
new plant was needed — be it plum or blackberry
or solanum or poppy or walnut — it seemed always
to come from some thoughtful, perhaps unknown
collector living in an out of the way part of the
world, who appeared to have known by intuition
just what were the needs of the moment.

This occurred so often that it came to be a mat-

[122]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

ter almost of expectation, and so constant and so
varied have been the contributions of willing
helpers that these expectations have seldom been
disappointed.

Among my regular collectors residing in places
that have not hitherto been thoroughly botanized,
I must name in particular my highly esteemed
friend, Senor Jose D. Husbands of Chile, who has
sent me almost numberless new species for trial
from the southern half of South America.

For me Senor Husbands has scaled forbidding
mountain peaks, waded rivers, visited islands,
traveled through wild arid deserts, even risking
his life among barbaric natives who have never
been subdued and who do not always give the
traveler hospitable welcome. The value of the
materials that thus have been secured would be
beyond estimate.

METHODS AND OBJECTS SOUGHT

To give details as to the methods by which I
sought to blend the qualities of the plants that
furnished material for the new investigations
when the experiment gardens were fairly in opera-
tion, would be to repeat what has been fully told
in earlier volumes of this work.

The record of the results of these experiments
makes up the main bulk of all these volumes. So
it obviously is not desirable that I should attempt

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to repeat here, even in epitome, what has else-
where been told in detail. Yet a few general
comments on methods and results may be of
interest.

Also it may not be amiss, by way of summary,
to outline very briefly the chronological sequence
of the chief lines of endeavor of the period, now
approaching the termination of its third decade,
during which the attempt to develop improved
races of plants has been comprehensively carried
out.

In the successive chapters that have told of the
different lines of endeavor, plants were naturally
grouped according to their botanical relations or
their economic uses, with only incidental reference
to the date of the experiment through which this
or that particular variety was developed.

Perhaps, then, it will serve to coordinate the
work as a whole if we review in partial outline
the story of the endeavors of successive periods;
bearing in mind, of course, that many scores of
experiments were always being carried forward
simultaneously, and that many experiments that
achieved notable results at an early day, are still
being carried forward in the attempt to obtain
results even more notable.

Taking the widest and most general view, it
may be said that the chief lines of investigation at

[125]

LUTHER BURBANK

the outset of the period when my energies were
turned exclusively to experimental work, instead
of being unhampered by ordinary nursery duties,
had to do with the improvement of orchard fruits
on one hand and with certain flowering plants on
the other. From the outset, however, small fruits
were given almost equal attention.

It had been made clear to me, through nursery
experience, that the varieties of fruits grown in
California at that time, being all of eastern origin,
were not ideally adapted to the new climatic con-
ditions of the Pacific Coast. It seemed desirable
that new varieties adapted to the new conditions
should be produced.

So one prime object of my early work was to
develop orchard fruits, and notably prunes and
plums and peaches, that would be of value in the
development of the fruit industry in California.

But I had in mind also the desirability of pro-
ducing fruits that would be adapted to growth in
other regions of the country. I observed that
most of the fruits then existing were lacking in
important qualities that are equally essential
wherever the fruit is grown. Many trees, for in-
stance, bore large crops one year or perhaps for
two years in succession, and then were practically
sterile in the ensuing season. A late spring frost,
too much rain at the time of blooming, or some

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other less evident cause, might prevent the tree
from bearing, thus making fruit raising a some-
what "hit-or-miss" proposition.

I determined from the outset to give particular
attention to these matters, endeavoring to produce
varieties of fruit trees that would be hardy and
resistant to unfavorable conditions and that would
be not only heavy bearers but regular bearers. The
matter of resistance to insect pests and to disease
was also given careful consideration from the
outset.

Seedlings that showed susceptibility were ruth-
lessly weeded out, and the survivors became the
parents of races that are relatively immune to
disease.

Of course the combination of different species
to bring together long-diverged racial strains was
a fundamental part of the plan. Unnumbered
thousands of hand-pollenizing experiments were
made each year, and the limits of affinity between
the different species were tested by ceaseless and
persistent efforts.

When species that were seemingly somewhat
closely related proved infertile after cross pollena-
tion, it was not taken for granted that there was
real antagonism between those species until the
experiment had been tried over and over in suc-
cessive seasons, perhaps thousands of times in the

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case of a single pair of species, often using differ-
ent individuals and varieties of the species.

Instances in which a hybridizing experiment
at last proved successful after many years of fail-
ure— as for example in the case of the sunberry—
will be recalled by the reader.
PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS COMBINED

In general, practical results were sought, rather
than the establishment of theories; yet for the most
part, in such a line of experiment, theory and
practice necessarily go hand in hand.

The only sharp distinction between our method
and that of an experimenter who is looking only
to the investigation of the laws of heredity is that
we were obliged to select for preservation a few
only among large companies of hybrid seedlings,
destroying the rest, and to that extent making the
record incomplete.

It would be of great scientific interest to trace
the entire company of a hybrid stock as to all its
individual members through successive genera-
tions.

But when the members of a fraternity number
ten thousand or a hundred thousand or a million,
as was often the case in our experiments, the at-
tempt to preserve all and to investigate their prog-
eny through several generations would necessitate
the expansion of our experiment farm until it com-

[130]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

prised thousands of acres, and the employment of
an army of helpers.

If this is true of the plants of a single series
of experiments, what shall we say of the aggregate
companies making up the ranks of plants involved
in two or three thousand experiments. So soon as
our work was well under way, and throughout all
the succeeding years, at least three thousand dif-
ferent series of experiments have been carried for-
ward simultaneously.

Very commonly a million seedlings are in-
volved in a single fraternity.

Under these conditions, it will be obvious that
there was no choice but to select the few individ-
uals that came nearest to the ideals of a mental
forecast, ruthlessly destroying the rest to make
room for the favored ones.

And in so doing we were of course duplicating
the method of Nature herself, although the quali-
ties that determined our choice in any given case
were not usually those that would have fitted the
chosen individuals for preservation in a natural
environment. Our selections were made, of course,
with an eye to fitting the plant to meet human
needs and tastes. The selections of Nature are
made with reference to the needs of the plant
itself.

But if we make allowance for this difference in

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ON THE REWARDS QF PATIENCE

the point of view, we may say that the principle
of selection is the same in each case.

And we are justified, I suppose, in saying that
the experiments in artificial selection made on my
experiment farms during the period under review,
constitute the most elaborate series of experi-
mental proofs of the truth of the Darwinian doc-
trine of Natural Selection that have ever been
brought forward.

Such experiments in hybridizing and selection
as were part of the every-day work at Santa Rosa
and Sebastopol, season after season, involving
thousands of species, had been performed else-
where only in isolated cases and by rare excep-
tion. Nowhere else had such a work been under-
taken on a comprehensive scale even with a few
species of plants.

The application of the method to thousands of
species, involving countless myriads of individ-
uals, was an absolute novelty.

SCIENTIFIC RESULTS

The results of the work in their bearings on
scientific theory may be briefly summarized.

These experiments demonstrated that the bar-
riers between natural species are much more
fragile than had been almost universally supposed.

They showed that not only may we produce
fertile hybrids between a very large number of

[133]

LUTHER BURBANK

related species of plants, but that equally fertile
hybrids may be produced by the union of a good
many species that are so widely separated as to be
classified in different genera.

They showed that the first-generation hybrids
may resemble one parent or the other pretty
closely or may show a blending of qualities; and
that in the second generation, with rare excep-
tions, there is a segregation and recombination of
the racial qualities of the original parent species,
in which the extreme forms will more or less
closely duplicate one parent or the other, and the
intermediate forms may show almost every con-
ceivable gradation between the two.

They showed, further, that it is possible by
selecting among the second-generation hybrids the
individuals that show any desired combination of
qualities, to develop, in the course of a few gen-
erations of inbreeding, races in which this com-
bination of qualities is so accentuated and fixed as
to constitute a distinguishing characteristic of a
new variety quite unlike the original forms.

Moreover, the later-generation hybrids might
reveal racial traits that were not observable in
either of the parent species.

The segregation and redistribution of charac-
ters often gave opportunity for the appearance of
qualities that have long been submerged.

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As a tangible illustration, hybrids in the first
generation may show an enhanced capacity for
growth, and the later generation hybrids may be
graded from groups of dwarfs at one end of the
scale to giants at the other. A corresponding
gradation may be shown in regard to other quali-
ties, such as color of flower, character of leaf,
flavor of fruit, productivity, resistance to disease-
in a word as to all the varied properties that go to
make up the personality — if the expression be
permitted — of a plant.

Many of these things are so well recognized to-
day that they seem mere matters of fact, quite
beyond challenge. But they were matters of very
ardent challenge in the day when they were first
being demonstrated in the experiment gardens at
Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.

When the first official announcements of this
work were sent forth, through publication of the
brochure called New Creations in Fruits and Flow-
ers in June, 1893, the measure of the novelty of
the announcements may be gauged by the popular
interest aroused on one hand and by the outspoken
incredulity of the botanical and horticultural
worlds in general, save only the individual ex-
perts who had previously visited my grounds and
seen for themselves the truth of the matters that
were now given publicity.

[136]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

It will serve to give an outline of the progress
of the work if we briefly summarize the contents
of the successive catalogs in which the new devel-
opments were publicly reported.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS ANNOUNCED IN 1893

The first of these, as already noted, appeared in
June, 1893, under title of New Creations in Fruits
and Flowers. The subsequent ones were regarded
as supplements to the original publication. By
running over the contents of these supplements of
successive years, an impression is gained of the
sequence in which the more important plant de-
velopments were brought to a stage of improve-
ment that justified their introduction. But of
course it must not be inferred that the different
experiments had been taken up in the precise
sequence in which their successful results were
announced. Some lines of investigation require
far more time than others; there are experiments
still awaiting announcement that were begun at
the very outset of my experimental work.

Nevertheless the successive announcements
may be taken as at least giving a general view of
the progress of the work; so we may briefly sum-
marize the contents of the original publication and
of the earlier Supplements to which chief interest
attaches because of the entire novelty of the prod-
ucts they present.

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ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

In a later chapter we shall take up the theo-
retical bearings of the new work. Here we are
concerned for the most part with a bald recital
of the names of the more important new varieties
of plant life, presented somewhat in the order of
their introduction. Even as to these, nothing like
a complete list will be given, for the minor im-
provements of plant life, large numbers of which
have been referred to in the course of this work,
do not call for special reference here.

Even the recital of the names that cannot well
be overlooked may carry us to rather tiresome
lengths.

The new varieties of hybrid plants announced
in the publication of 1893 are listed in 18 suc-
cessive groups as follows :

(1) Hybrid Walnuts, including the forms
afterward named the Paradox and the Royal. The
pedigrees of the two hybrids are given, one being
a cross between the California and the Persian
walnut and the other between the black walnut
of the East and the California black walnut; but
the distinctive names were given later.

(2) A new Japanese Mammoth Chestnut. The
origin of this chestnut is given, and it is stated that
the one offered is "the best one of more than ten
thousand seedlings, a tree which every season
bears all it can hold of fat, glossy nuts of the very

[139]

LUTHER BURBANK

largest size and as sweet as the American chest-
nut."

(3) Two Quinces named respectively the Van
Deman and Santa Rosa, the former named in
honor of the Chief of the Pomological Department
of the Department of Agriculture, who had par-
ticularly admired it. A new Japan quince named
Alpha and a new flowering quince named Dazzle.

(4) Plums and Prunes. These comprised ten
new varieties of hybrids, for the most part bearing
numbers only, but including the Golden, the Dela-
ware, the Shipper, and the plums that afterward
were famous as the Wickson and America; also
the Giant and Splendor prunes.

(5) Hybrid and crossbred Berries. Here there
are 19 new varieties, including the Japanese Golden
Mayberry, the Primus berry, the berry afterward
named Phenomenal, the Paradox, the Autumn
Giant, and Eureka. The strange raspberry-straw-
berry hybrids are also described and pictured,
although not offered for sale.

(6) Seedling Roses and rose hybrids. There
are five named or numbered varieties in this list,
including the Peachblow and the one afterward
known as Santa Rosa. A number of Rugosa hy-
brids are listed in addition, one of them being
mentioned as having received a medal from the
California State Floral Society.

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• (7) New Callas. These included the varie-
gated Little Gem, the Snow Flake, the Giant Galla,
and the Golden variegated Richardia albo maca-
lata, it being recorded of the first-named that it
was selected from eighteen thousand seedlings,
and of the last named that it was the single selec-
tion among hundreds of thousands of bulbs of
the spotted-leaved Calla that had been raised from
seed on my grounds.

(8) Hybrid Lilies. Only two specified varieties
are offered under individual numbers, one being
the large-flowering Lilium pardalinum afterward
known as Fragrance, and the other a dwarf form
— growing only ten inches high and producing
from 20 to 40 blossoms on each of the short stalks
— which afterwards bore the name of Glow. But
the names of 42 species and varieties were given
as only a partial list of the lilies that had been
combined in the hybrid seedlings which even at
that time made up an extraordinary colony in the
experiment garden.

It was stated that some of the older hybrids and
seedlings were represented by as many as a thou-
sand bulbs each; that half a million kinds were
yet to unfold their petals for the first time; and
that we were still planting from one to three
pounds of hybridized lily seed every season.

So the varieties actually announced were only

[142]

Mr. Bur bank's Porch

Even the flowers that grow beside Mr. Burbank's house
are always undergoing observation and being tested as to their
capacity for further education. So pictures taken in different seasons
do not have the same appearance. At the moment, this
beautiful rose has the place of honor as the dec-
oration selected for Mr. Burbank's porch.

LUTHER BURBANK

the forerunners of a vast company of which more
would be heard in later years.

(9) New varieties of Gladiolus. It was stated
that six of the best forms of this flower, from
among a million or more seedlings raised during
the ten years preceding, had been introduced four
years earlier, one of these being the first double
gladiolus and the first of a type in which the
flowers are closely arranged all around the spike,
like a hyacinth. In the catalog ten interesting
forms were listed and succinctly described, among
others a white form with very large flowers, sev-
eral dwarfs with curious stripes and markings,
and sundry double forms.

(10) Hybrid Clematis. Six new forms were
named, including a double variety, with broad
snow-white petals, the flowers five to six inches in
diameter, that blooms almost constantly through-
out spring, summer, and fall. Another variety was
said to resemble a white water-lily, and it was said
of the group that "No hardy flower except the rose
and the lily is so magnificently beautiful as the
new hybrid Clematis; seedlings of which have
been grown at the rate of ten thousand a year for
several years."

(11) A new Myrtle. This is described as a
new silver variegated Roman Myrtle or Brides'
Myrtle, originated as early as 1882. It had been

[144]

Another View of Mr. Burbank's Porch

At this end of the house, an ivy is at

present in favor, and will perhaps form a permanent

attraction. It is a very beautiful selected specimen, as will be seen.

LUTHER BURBANK

characterized by the California State Gardener as
the handsomest variegated shrub he had ever seen.

(12) A new Poppy named Silver Lining. De-
scribed as developed by six years' selection from
a sport of the Papaver umbrosum (Butterfly
Poppy), and as being of a glistening silver white
on the inside of each petal instead of crimson and
black; the outside remaining of the original bril-
liant crimson, thus producing a strikingly beauti-
ful effect.

(13) A new plant, the Nicotunia. This name
had been coined to describe a new race produced
by crossing a tobacco plant (Nicotiana) with a
Petunia. A suggestion of the difficulties involved
in making this cross was given in these words:

"If anyone thinks he can take right hold and
produce Nicotunias as he would hybrid petunias
or crossbred primroses, let him try; there is no
patent on their manufacture; but if the five hun-
dredth crossing succeeds, or even the five thou-
sandth, under the best conditions obtainable, he
will surely be very successful; I do not fear any
immediate competition."

It was stated that the flowers of the new hybrid
are handsome, white, pink, carmine, or striped,
and are borne in bounteous profusion, but that no
seed is ever produced, although the plants are very
readily multiplied by cuttings.

[146]

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LUTHER BURBANK

(14) Hybrid Nicotianas. These are hybrids
produced by crossing six or more different species
of Nicotiana. "Many of the new hybrid varieties
are only obtained after several thousand crossings,
under all conditions which seemed to promise
success; but now I have perennial varieties with
glaucous green foliage, edged and mottled with
white, bearing pink blossoms in cymes two or
three feet across with from five hundred to two
thousand or more blossoms in each cyme. Most
of these hybrids are readily propagated from root
cuttings or slips; none of them ever bear any seed;
all are unusually hardy."

(15) Begonia-Leaved Squash. "A mammoth
squash which produced abundant crops for stock
feeding and has bright golden variegated leaves.
The unusual leaf variegation appeared four years
ago [1889] on a single vine, and by selection has
become so fixed that at least 95 per cent, are varie-
gated. The form, size, and uniform appearance of
the squashes has also been very greatly improved."

(16) New Potatoes. Two varieties are de-
scribed as being the best of several thousand
seedlings that have been tested for five years. One
is a long, nearly cylindrical, smooth, white seed-
ling of the Burbank; the other is a short, flatish,
oval, light colored potato with a russet coat, from
a cross between the old "Chile" or "Bodega red"

[148]

LUTHER BURBANK

and the Burbank. "Both are superior keepers,
and have never shown any tendency to become
diseased."

(17) Ornamental Crossbred Tomato. This new
fruiting plant is named Combination and is de-
scribed as a cross between the "Little Currant"
and the "Dwarf Champion" tomatoes. "The curi-
ous plaited, twisted and blistered, but handsome
leaves, sturdily compact growth, and clusters of
fruit, will make it a favored ornamental plant
which can be easily grown by everybody."

(18) "Other New Plants." A miscellaneous list
of hybrids, including some very extraordinary
combinations, particularly crosses between the dif-
ferent orchard fruits, peaches, almonds, plums,
quinces, and apples in various combinations. The
photograph of a stem of apetalous pistillate blos-
soms of a plum-apricot hybrid is given; a picture
that has peculiar interest now in view of the subse-
quent development of the plumcot. Mention is also
made of the crossbred tigridias, new cannas,
arums, amaryllis, brodiaeas, aquilegias, and asters,
and a multitude of other things not yet near
enough to perfection to merit a special description.
These were to appear in later catalogs.

A SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS
The list of "New Creations" thus briefly sum-
marized occupies fifty pages.

[150]

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

There follows a concluding section under the
heading "Facts and Possibilities" that summarizes
the work and that may be worth quoting here for
its historical interest. The wider bearings of the
problems touched on will be more comprehen-
sively discussed in a later chapter. But the general
attitude of the experimenter toward his work in
both its theoretical and its practical bearings is
rather clearly outlined in the summary concluding
a catalog which so high an authority as Professor
Hugo de Vries has seen fit to describe as of epoch-
making character:

"There is no possible room for doubt that every
form of plant life existing on the earth is now
being and has always been modified, more or less,
by its surroundings, and often rapidly and per-
manently changed, never to return to the same
form.

"When man takes advantage of these facts, and
changes all the conditions, giving abundance of
room for expansion and growth, extra cultivation
and a superabundance of the various chemical
elements in the most assimilable form, with abun-
dance of light and heat, great changes sooner or
later occur according to the susceptibility of the
subject; and when, added to all these combined
governing forces, we employ the other potent
forces of combination and selection of the best

[151]

Gathering Poppies

The selected varieties of hybrid oriental poppies blossom
early and late at Sebastopol. This picture was taken in March,
not long after Mr. Burbank's sixty-fifth birthday. It is an
excellent portrait of the plant developer as he is today.

ON THE REWARDS OF PATIENCE

combinations, the power to improve our useful and
ornamental plants is limitless."

TEN YEARS OF PROGRESS

In describing my work, Professor de Vries has
said that my catalog of 1893, the contents of which
have just been summarized, gained for its author
"a world wide reputation and brought him into
connection with almost all of the larger horticul-
tural firms on the earth."

It would be superfluous to recapitulate in de-
tail the plant developments that have occupied
attention at Santa Rosa and Sebastopol in the
more recent years.

In the course of the decade following the an-
nouncements in the first edition of New Creations,
the new experimental work was subjected to scru-
tiny by large numbers of visitors, including dis-
tinguished pomologists and horticulturists and
botanists from all over the world. The new fruits
and flowers had been subjected to tests sufficient
to establish their merit. All skepticism as to the
validity of the announcements that came officially
from Santa Rosa had long since vanished.

On the other hand, there were many discrimi-
nating and appreciative notices of the new work
published in magazines and books.

If I were to summarize in a sentence or two the
main lines of progress of the most recent decade,

[153]

LUTHER BURBANK

I should of necessity give first place to the work
of development of the races of Spineless Cactus,
which reached a commercial stage in 1904. The
work with the Indian Corn, including, incident-
ally, the development of the Rainbow Corn; the
development of the giant Amaryllis; the perfec-
tion of new races of Shasta Daisies; the develop-
ment of new Roses, Gladioli, and some scores of
other flowers; varied work with the Poppies; the
development of new races of Giant Crimson win-
ter rhubarb; the production of the Sunberry; new
Plums, Prunes, Cherries, Peaches, Apples, and
Plumcots; and an elaborate series of experiments
with Cereals and Grasses — these represent a few
main lines of the work that has occupied attention
in recent years, and will serve to suggest the fur-
ther lines of action that will claim attention in
the years to come.

Meantime the present publication, giving the
first complete and authoritative account of my
work that has ever been attempted, comes forty
years after the development of the Burbank po-
tato, which marked the beginning of my plant
development. Yet I have reason to hope that there
are years ahead that will prove even more pro-
ductive than any years of the past — perhaps in
their ultimate importance more productive than
all the forty years of past effort.

[154]

LUTHER BURBANK— THE SUM OF
His WORK WITH PLANT LIFE

WHAT IT HAS MEANT TO SCIENCE AND
AGRICULTURE

WE have seen that the first edition of
New Creations in Fruits and Flowers
was published in June, 1893. Perhaps
we can best give an idea of the impression created
by the work by quoting a few paragraphs from
the introduction to the supplementary brochure
that was published the following year. Although
this .second work was issued independently, it
consisted in the main of a fuller account of some
of the plant developments referred to in the first
work, together with a large number of photo-
graphic illustrations. The two brochures, issued
respectively in 1893 and 1894, may be considered
as constituting the first official publication of the
main outlines of the work in plant development
which had begun in Massachusetts fully twenty-
five years earlier, and which had occupied Mr.
Burbank's attention unreservedly since 1885.

[VOLUME XII— CHAPTER IV]

LUTHER BURBANK

The impression created by the first brochure is
referred to in the introduction to the supplement-
ary one in the following words:

"Twelve months have passed since the first
number of New Creations in Fruits and Flowers
was sent out on its mission among dealers in trees
and plants, great care being taken to confine it to
the trade only; but before the few hundred first
published were all delivered, orders came pouring
in with each mail, like the falling of autumn
leaves, for more, more; and again more had to be
printed, and to this day the requests for New
Creations are increasing rapidly, instead of di-
minishing, as it had been hoped they would.

"Probably no horticultural publication ever
created more profound surprise or received a more
hearty welcome. Almost every mail brings re-
quests for them from colleges, experiment stations,
libraries, students, and scientific societies in
Europe and America, and it has been translated
into other languages for foreign lands, even where
it would seem that scientific Horticulture was
hardly recognized; some asking for one, others
for two or three, or a dozen or two, or more. All
these requests have been cheerfully responded to,
but from this time on we shall be obliged to make
a charge. We cannot attend to the ever increas-
ing avalanche of letters which they occasion, a

[156]

Mr. Burbank with a Gigantic Crinum Bulb

This also is a very recent portrait of Mr. Burbank, taken
at Sebastopol. He is standing beside the trunk of the weeping
birch, with which we have already made acquaintance in other pic-
tures. The remarkable bulb is a cross between the crinum

and the amaryllis, fully described in an earlier volume.

LUTHER BURBANK

large portion of which are from amateurs, with
long lists of questions, which would require years,
perhaps a lifetime, to answer.

"Five years ago we sold out a nursery business
which had been built up from nothing, and which
was paying us fully ten thousand dollars a year,
that we might give all our time and thought to the
work of producing new fruits and flowers.

"Do not think because they are raised in sunny
California that they are less likely to prove gen-
erally hardy. Are those already before the public
any less hardy or any less valuable than most of
the Russian fruits which have been so extensively
advertised for years? Are not the various Plums,
Walnuts, Chestnuts, etc., which have been dis-
tributed from our establishment, proving to be
hardier even than most of the Russian fruits, and
more valuable in all other respects? But the best
ones are yet to come.

"About twelve years ago, when, having by thor-
ough test found them good, we first commenced to
introduce these fruits and nuts, sending circulars
to most of the nurserymen in the United States, it
was like trying to swim up stream in a rapidly
flowing river, as very few had faith enough in
them to invest in a tree; but those who were enter-
prising enough to do so, now find themselves fully
prepared to supply the great and ever increasing

[158]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

demand which has followed, and are reaping rich
rewards for the small investment of enterprise and
coin which they then made."

It will appear from this quotation that the
announcement of the new fruits and flowers cre-
ated an altogether exceptional interest, and that
this interest was not confined to any one class of
people. Although the announcement had been
made for the benefit of practical horticulturists
and nurserymen, the brochure found its way into
the hands of the general public and of theoretical
biologists, as well, and it would be hard to say
which class of people were most exercised over it.

If we briefly review the causes that underlay
this widespread interest, and, considering one
class of the public after another, attempt to explain
just what its attitude was toward the new work,
we shall at the same time be able to present an
outline of the work itself and interpret it in the
light of the mental environment of the time at
which the work appeared with reference to the
broad problems of heredity.

Let us then attempt a brief analysis of the atti-
tude of (1) horticulturists in general, (2) the pub-
lic at large, (3) scientific biologists, and (4) work-
ing experimenters in heredity, with reference to
the revelations made in New Creations in Fruits
and Flowers. In so doing we shall gain an inkling

[159]

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Mr. Burbank in an Oriental Setting

The photograph reproduces part of an article in Chinese,
describing Mr. Burbank and his work. Some of the productions
of the Santa Rosa plant developer are listed in Chinese and Japanese
seed catalogs. Mr. Burbank received many useful plants from
the Orient, and it is appropriate that improved de-
scendants of these plants should be sent back
to the home of their ancestors.

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

of the bearing of the work done at Santa Rosa on
questions of practical horticulture, of public opin-
ion, and of biological theory.

It may be added that the word "heredity" had
not at this time been introduced.

WHY THE ORCHARDISTS WERE INTERESTED

The supplementary announcement, issued in
1894, gave the names of several important firms of
dealers in horticultural supplies, who had pur-
chased the principal new varieties announced in
the brochure of the preceding year. The list
included the names of prominent nurserymen
from California to New England.

The interest thus evidenced by the practical
orchardists and nurserymen, who measured the
value of the new products in terms of dollars and
cents may readily enough be accounted for. Up-
to-date dealers are always on the lookout for
novelties; and the fruits and flowers produced at
Santa Rosa were novelties in the most compre-
hensive and exacting sense of the word.

They were not merely new varieties that dif-
fered by a shade from old varieties. They were
new forms produced by the combination of dif-
ferent species, often of species brought together
from different hemispheres; and they were so rad-
ically different from the forms previously in ex-
istence that many of them would, without hesita-

[161]

LUTHER BURBANK

tion be pronounced new species by any competent
botanist were they discovered in the wild state, or
were their precise manner of origin unknown.

But mere novelty by no means fully explained
the interest of the orchardist in the new products.
In addition to novelty the hybrid fruits and flowers
had qualities of excellence that gave them instant
appeal.

The resources of the now familiar method of
half-tone illustration, at that time quite new, had
been utilized to show the exact appearance of the
new fruits and flowers, and so far as possible the
reproductions were made of exact life size, in a
good many cases one or both of the parent forms
being reproduced beside their hybrid offspring, to
point the contrast.

It required but a glance at the pictures of the
new hybrid prunes and plums, blackberries and
raspberries, roses and gladioli, nicotianas and to-
matoes, to convince the skeptical that these were
products calculated to appeal to the most prac-
tical growers.

The full force of this will be evident if we re-
call that this first announcement pictured and de-
scribed such fruits as the hybrid prune that was
afterward named the Splendor; the hybrid plum
named Perfection, afterward famous as the Wick-
son; the dewberry-raspberry hybrid known every-

[162]

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-

LUTHER BURBANK

where in later years as the Primus; the offspring
of the dewberry and Cuthbert raspberry now
known as the Phenomenal; the raspberry hybrid
called October Giant and the blackberry hybrid
known as Paradox; a seedling rose of exquisite
quality; and the profuse-bearing double Gladiolus.
Interest was further enhanced by the picturing of
the hybrid walnuts, the outlines of mammoth new
quinces, curiously diversified stalks of hybrid
raspberries and blackberries, leaves and stems of
the raspberry-strawberry hybrid, and the curi-
ously deformed products of the engrafted potato
and tomato vines.

The supplementary brochure of 1894 added
striking photographic reproductions of the new
white blackberry named Iceberg, a number of
hybrid liles, the new and beautiful clematis flow-
ers, the miniature calla Snowflake, branches of
the new hybrid Wax Myrtles, a score or so of
curiously varying fruits of the Japanese quince,
and the new rose Peachblow.

There were also pictures showing the curious
and spectacular diversity among leaves of the
hybrid blackberries that could not fail to excite
the attention of the least observant.

The contrast between the broad solid leaf of
one plant, and the fimbriated fern-like foliage of
another; the observation that some leaves were

[164]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

arranged in groups of three and others in groups
of five — these were matters that caught the eye
even of the amateur, and, as a matter of course,
excited the interest of the professional student of
plants.

Equally striking were the full page reproduc-
tions of photographs showing various stems of the
hybrid raspberries and blackberries, some of them
slender and frail, others coarse and rugged; some
almost thornless, and others bristling with spicules
or studded with threatening spikes. The diversity
of color among these stalks was clearly suggested
by the half-tones, and the legend beneath one of
them stated that "the colors vary from snow white,
through lemon yellow, orange, scarlet, crimson,
purple, light and dark blue and brown to black."

That such diversities of leaf and stem could be
brought about by hybridization was a fact that
could scarcely fail to command the attention of
the practical orchardist, and to raise questions in
his mind as to whether there were any limits to
the possibilities of the new method of plant devel-
opment.

At all events, it was obvious enough that, quite
aside from the interesting questions suggested by
the hybrid leaves and vines, here were numerous
new varieties of fruits and flowers — more than fifty
of them specifically named or numbered — having

[165]

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A Burbank Product Highly Honored

This diploma was issued by the Lewis & Clark Exposi-
tion to a grower of the Burbank crimson winter rhubarb. It
is one of a large collection of awards which have been made to
growers of Mr. Burbank's products.

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

qualities that patrons of the orchardist might be
expected to appreciate — fruits and flowers calcu-
lated to enter into competition on something more
than equality with those already on the market.

Hence, no second call was necessary to chal-
lenge the attention of the orchardist, and no second
announcement was required for a large proportion
of the newly developed hybrids.

In a word, the practical orchardists called for
the new hybrid fruits and flowers at once, and
paid the prices asked for them because of the
obvious practicality of the new products them-
selves.

Their confidence has been justified by the
sequel, for great communities have been built up
—as in the case of Vacaville, California, one of the
great shipping centers — by these fruits, and whole
communities benefited, and the occupations of
the entire population changed.

THE PUBLIC INTEREST EXPLAINED

To understand why the general public became
so much exercised over the announcement of the
new hybrids, it is necessary to recall that the broad
general questions of evolution were still exercising
the public mind at the time when New Creations
appeared.

Darwin's epoch-making work had indeed ap-
peared more than thirty years before, and the doc-

[167]

LUTHER BURBANK

trine of evolution had taken its place as an a<%
cepted working hypothesis among men of science*
but so revolutionary a doctrine could not be ex-
pected to make its way with the general public in
less than a generation, and it is probable that, if
we could accurately gauge what might be called
the intellectual atmosphere, we should find that
it was as fully charged in the year 1893 with doubts
as to the truth of the Darwinian doctrine as it had
been thirty years earlier.

At the earlier period, indeed, the man in the
street had known but little of the character and
implications of the doctrines involved. He per-
haps had heard that "Darwin thinks men de-
scended from monkeys", and with a few of the
conventional and obvious jokes associated with
that idea, the matter, so far as he was concerned,
for the most part ended.

But by the closing decade of the nineteenth
century, after the bitter controversies of the men
of science and the theologist had been fought out,
a fuller recognition of the true implications of the
doctrine of evolution began to permeate the lower
strata of mental life of the generation, and
thoughtful minds everywhere were eagerly ques-
tioning as to what might be the full truth and the
final status of the evolutionary doctrine.

Into this atmosphere of inquiry and doubt and

[168]

II

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LUTHER BURBANK

solicitude came the document from Santa Rosa,
ostensibly only a nursery catalog, but conveying a
message that made itself heard far beyond the
province of the nurseryman.

Here were presented brief descriptions and
photographic illustrations of a large number of
new forms of plant life. These new forms were in
many cases so strikingly different from the old
ones that the least informed man in the street
could not fail to note their diversity. Some of
them obviously differed as strikingly from their
parent forms, to all casual inspection, as recog-
nized species hitherto familiar differed from one
another.

In a word, here were illustrations of what ap-
peared to be new species of plants, and these ap-
parently new species were of known origin. They
had been developed under the hand of the experi-
menter through the hybridization of old species,
followed by artificial selection of a character hav-
ing obvious affinity with the operation of natural
selection on plants in the state of nature.

Otherwise stated, the Santa Rosa catalog
appeared to tell of the creation of new species, by
artificial selection, in an experiment garden, in a
brief term of years.

All details aside, the photographic pictures
showed offspring that seemed to be conspicuously

[170]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

unlike their parents — not different enough, to be
sure, to belie utterly the familiar doctrine that
"like begets like", yet different enough to demon-
strate, seemingly, that a new species may arise
from the loins, so to speak, of the old ones.

However vaguely the laws or principles of
heredity involved might be understood; however
far from understanding the precise method of pro-
duction of the new forms the general public might
be, the tangible fact that widely divergent forms
of plant life might spring from the same source —
witness, for example, the brier stems of strikingly
different forms or the cluster of utterly different
leaves grown from the seed of one plant — was
made clear beyond misunderstanding.

And this constituted, in the minds of many lay-
men, a clearer and more cogent argument for the
truth of the doctrine of evolution than could have
been found in any amount of theorizing or in the
presentation of any number of illustrations drawn
from the records of fossil forms or the theoretical
reconstruction of the genealogies of species of past
eras.

The arguments of the paleontologist and the
embryologist; even the arguments of the theoret-
ical botanist and biologist — these lay mostly be-
yond the ken of the man in the street. But he
could readily enough understand the simple de-

[171]

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scriptions given in New Creations. With his own
eyes he could see the striking and even spectacular
differences between the plants of the same fra-
ternity therein depicted. In effect, he received an
object lesson in plant variation and a convincing
argument for the truth — the tangible, demon-
strable truth — of the doctrine of evolution which
to him had hitherto seemed an academic question,
involving the living forms of the remote geological
eras rather than the forms of plant and animal life
that are all about him in the world of to-day.

And this, it may be supposed, sufficiently
explains and interprets the interest in New
Creations that was manifested by that great body
of intelligent laymen personified under the title of
"the man in the street."

THE INTEREST OF THEORETICAL EVOLUTIONISTS
AND BOTANISTS

To understand the interest of a smaller but
highly important coterie of people who may be
broadly classified as students of evolution — includ-
ing college professors on one hand and a few
practical breeders of plants and animals on the
other — we must consider yet another aspect of
the intellectual atmosphere of the closing decade
of the nineteenth century.

We must understand that in this period,
whereas the general doctrine of evolution had

[173]

LUTHER BURBANK

been accepted, there was wide diversity of opinion
as to many of its important details. It could
scarcely be said that there was any prevalent doc-
trine as to what forces in nature caused the ob-
served variation between wild forms of plant and
animal life upon which the operation of natural
selection is based.

The "survival of the fittest" was an accepted
doctrine, but the origin of the fittest was an un-
solved enigma.

A suggestion that new forms might arise by
hybridizing existing species had occurred, doubt-
less, to many minds. But this idea was combated
or annulled by the prevalent notion that the off-
spring of true species are necessarily infertile.

It is true that a few plant breeders, notably
Dean Herbert and Andrew Knight, had advocated
the idea that hybrids between true species may be
fertile, and, indeed, had even seemed to demon-
strate the truth of this view some three genera-
tions earlier. But the influence of the celebrated
experimenter, Carl Friedrich von Gaertner, had
served to give vogue to the opposite opinion.

Darwin had argued for the fertility of some
natural hybrids, but he had not been able to make
out a case that by any means carried conviction
to the generality of biologists and botanists; and
the current opinion was that the comparatively

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few cases of the fertility of seeming hybrids might
best be explained either on the supposition that the
observed forms were not really of the parentage
ascribed to them; or else that the parent forms,
even though classified as different, were not really
entitled to rank as independent species.

In a word, the doctrine of Kolreuter and his
followers, which would make the sterility of the
hybrid offspring a test of the specific diversity of
the parent forms, was perhaps the stock doctrine
of the biological world.

The implications of such an argument are obvi-
ous. If we are to answer the question, "What is
the test as to whether two forms are entitled to
recognition as different species?" by saying, "They
are different if their hybrid offspring are sterile,
and they are only varieties if their offspring are
fertile" — we should obviously supply a definition
that takes the matter beyond the range of
argument.

And, inasmuch as the minds of the biologists
were now adjusted to the new Darwinian idea that
there is a wide range of variation in natural forms,
and that natural species are after all only varieties
that have separated a little farther, the idea that
the classifier might be mistaken in ascribing spe-
cific difference to any pair of forms, and that the
physiological test of the production of sterile

[176]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

hybrids might afford a final guide, was not without
its practical value, and made perhaps not unnat-
ural appeal to the more or less befuddled classi-
fiers themselves.

And so long as cross-fertilization was effected
solely between forms of animal or plant life that
were found growing wild in the same region, and
were obviously not very distantly related, it was
hardly possible to present evidence of the fertility
of hybrids between true species that would be
convincing.

The more fully the biologist grasped the phil-
osophical idea that the word "species" is after all
only a convenient formula to apply to a given form
rather for convenience of nomenclature than as
representing true and permanent distinctions, the
more logically might he grasp the dictum that any
two forms that can interbreed and produce fertile
offspring are not entitled to rank as species, even
in the modified view of the meaning of the word
species that the evolutionary doctrine has intro-
duced.

Yet after all there is a certain tangibility about
the idea connoted by the word species that the
practical classifier cannot ignore. The blackberry
and the raspberry, for example, are so obviously
different in many really essential parts of their
structure that to deny them specific individuality

[177]

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would be to introduce an element of iconoclasm
that would shake the entire structure of systematic
botany.

So when evidence is presented that a black-
berry and a raspberry have been hybridized, and
that the offspring is a plant quite as fertile as either
of its parents, though markedly different from
both, the case seems to give evidence that the off-
spring of true species are not necessarily sterile.

And the fact that the new hybrid differs so
widely from either parent that it would be named
by the classifier as constituting a new species
according to ordinary standards, and that it breeds
true to its new form, seems to furnish further evi-
dence that new species of plant life may conceiv-
ably arise by the hybridization of old species.

In a word, a single case like that of the hybrid
Blackberry-raspberry, described and depicted in
New Creations under the name of the Primus
Berry, would seem by itself fairly to establish the
doctrine that new species of plants may arise by
the hybridization of old species.

Stated otherwise, the case of the Primus berry
would seem to furnish unequivocal evidence as to
at least one way in which the problem of the
origin of new species might be answered. The
survival of the fittest had been explained as an
essential part of the Darwinian doctrine. The

[179]

LUTHER BURBANK

origin of the fittest (or at least one possible origin)
appeared to be explained by the existence of such
a hybrid as the Primus Berry.

The parents of the Primus berry, it will be
recalled, were the California dewberry (Rabas
ursinus) and the Siberian raspberry (Rubus cra-
taegifolius). Not only are these forms so differ-
ent in appearance that no botanist would ever
think of denying that they belong to totally dif-
ferent species, but the fact that one of them is
indigenous to California and the other to Siberia
gives what might be called geographical support
to the opinions of the classifiers. Few indeed are
the forms of animal or plant life inhabiting the
Eastern and the Western Hemispheres that are
recognized as specifically identical.

The same genera are represented on both con-
tinents, because the remote progenitors of all races
of animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere
were once inhabitants of a common territory in
the region of the North Pole. But there has been
no opportunity for the mingling of Asiatic and
American forms of plant life since the separation
of the continents, until civilized man in very recent
time began to transport forms of animal and plant
life across the oceans.

There had been no communication since a
remote geological era — probably not since the last

[180]

£55^?

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LUTHER BURBANK

ice age; so on mere geographical grounds the spe-
cific difference between the Siberian raspberry
and the California dewberry might be accepted
without further argument. But, quite aside from
this, differences between the two forms are suffi-
cient to give them independent specific rank in
the mind of any botanist.

The fact that one is classified as a blackberry
and the other as a raspberry will sufficiently estab-
lish their diversity in the mind of the layman.

Yet the report from Santa Rosa told of the
hybridizing of these diverse forms, and of the
production of a new fruit differing very markedly
from either parent, although retaining some of the
characteristics of each; and told further that this
new hybrid, far from being sterile, has such fer-
tility that it ripens its main crop of berries long
before most kinds of raspberries and blackberries
commence to bloom, and continues to bear more
or less berries all summer.

So the evidence that hybrid offspring of two
species may be fertile and may thus offer material
for the action of natural selection in the creation
of new species appeared doubly demonstrative.

It is probable, then, that the announcement of
the development of the Primus Berry would have
aroused no small measure of interest among prac-
tical plant breeders and theoretical students of

[182]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

evolution, even had it been made by itself as a
single and isolated experiment in hybridization.

But, in point of fact, the record of the Primus
Berry was accompanied by similar records of an
entire company of new hybrid blackberries and
raspberries. In the same section of New Creations
that told of the Primus Berry, there wras the record
of an equally remarkable blackberry-raspberry
hybrid of an entirely different character, the par-
ents this time being the California dewberry and
the well-known Cuthbert raspberry, the latter a
native of England.

Three hybrids of this cross were offered for
introduction, one of them being the extraordinary
berry that was afterward named the Humboldt,
and then renamed the Phenomenal.

There were two other hybrid dewberries of
only lesser interest. There was also the hybrid
between the Crystal White Blackberry and Shaf-
fer's Colossal Raspberry, which produced the
berry famous afterward as the Paradox, and from
which new races of raspberries and blackberries
of almost every conceivable combination can be
produced, as the photograph showing varied
leaves, to which reference has already been made,
amply demonstrated.

Then, too, there was the hybrid between the
Japanese Golden Mayberry and the Cuthbert

[183]

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Raspberry; and there were no fewer than ten
other raspberry hybrids that were listed specifi-
cally each under a definitive name or number,
and offered for sale as new varieties at a specified
price.

Moreover, a list was given of no fewer than
thirty-seven named species of Rubus (the generic
name of the tribe of raspberries and blackberries)
that had been utilized in the hybridizing experi-
ments through which the new varieties have been
produced; and the statement was made with refer-
ence to the list that "the combinations are endless;
the results are startling and as surprising to myself
as they will be to others when known."

An inkling of the work involved in the produc-
tion of these unique results is given in an explana-
tory paragraph:

"Everybody appreciates delicious berries, but
probably not one person in each million has the
faintest idea of the labor and expense of crossing,
raising and testing a million new kinds of berries
as the writer has done, and selecting with untiring
diligence those which are to become standards of
excellence as the years roll by.

The reader of earlier chapters of this work will
fully comprehend the sense in which the phrase
"a million new kinds of berries" is used. We
have learned that each variant type of cultivated

[185]

LUTHER BURBANK

fruit is regarded by the orchardist as an inde-
pendent variety, owing to the fact that it may be
propagated indefinitely by division or by grafting.

"A million new kinds" refers to the endless
diversity of individual forms among hybrid black-
berries and raspberries, from among which a score
or so had been selected as worthy of introduction.
It should be added, however, that certain of these,
including the Primus berry and the Phenomenal,
were fixed varieties or new species that would
breed true from the seed.

In another clause reference is made to "four-
teen years" of experiment, revealing the fact that
the blackberries and raspberries were among the
plants that Mr. Burbank had found time to experi-
ment with extensively during the ten year period of
the nursery experience that preceded the establish-
ment of his experiment gardens.

It was partly because these fruits had been
experimented with for this long period that so
large a section of New Creations was devoted to
new races of hybrid berries.

It should not be understood, however, that the
work with the blackberries and raspberries stood
at all by itself in presenting evidence of the fer-
tility of hybrids, and in thus throwing new light
on the problems of evolution.

On the contrary, evidence of precisely the same

[186]

LUTHER BURBANK

character was presented by one after another of
the different records that made up the total of
more than fifty new hybrid varieties of nuts and
orchard fruits and flowers offered for introduction
in the pages of New Creations.

The hybrid walnut, known as the Royal, one
parent of which was the black walnut of the East
and the other the black walnut of California, was
represented by its gigantic nut, depicted on the
same page with the smaller nuts of the ancestral
forms. And it was particularly noted that the new
hybrid had borne nuts in abundance, although the
other hybrid walnut, due to the union of the Cali-
fornia and Persian walnut, had not then borne
fruit.

It may be added that the relative infertility of
hybrids between forms distantly related is recog-
nized in the course of the description of this sec-
ond hybrid walnut, in the statement that in its
failure to bear fruit it is like many true hybrids;
the writer having doubtless in mind such examples
as those furnished by the new plant called the
Nicotunia, a combination of the tobacco and the
petunia, which is described on another page of
New Creations; and the equally interesting hybrid
between the raspberry and the strawberry, also
described and depicted.

These sterile hybrids, with which the reader

[188]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

of the present work is already familiar, illustrate
another aspect of heredity no less interesting; but
at the moment we are concerned with the fertile
hybrids.

And these, it may be added, include all the
fifty-odd plants described in the catalog, with the
three exceptions just noted.

Without entering into specific details, we may
briefly note that the new hybrid plums here listed,
and for the most part pictorially shown, were ten
in number, involving the racial strains of species
from Japan and China, from Europe, and from
various regions of America.

The hybrids among flowers were also given
full representation, ten pages of the catalog being
devoted to them, and the new varieties named
and described including roses, callas, lilies, glad-
ioli, a number of forms of clematis, and a new
poppy. New types of hybrid seedling potatoes
were also listed, and a new form of crossbred
tomato, called the Combination.

The extraordinary Aerial potatoes grown on
potato vines grafted on the roots of the tomato;
and the no less extraordinary potatoes grown on
a stock having an engrafted tomato top are also
shown, although merely as curiosities and not as
commercial products.

To complete the summary of the evidence that

[189]

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THE SUM OF HIS WORK

was presented for the possibility of producing new
varieties through hybridizing old species, it should
be added that mention was made in a separate
section of numerous experiments with seedlings
of the ampelopsis, a new type of wax myrtle, and
"some charming, crossbred seedling tigridias, new
cannas, arums, amaryllis, brodiaeas, aquiligias,
asters, and a multitude of other things not yet
near enough to perfection to merit a special
description; yet some of the hybrids of which are
worthy of much study." A list of other species
that had been mutually hybridized begins with
the peach and almond, and names more than
twenty crosses between the various types of
orchard fruits — apricot, plum, quince, and apple,
as well as peach — in various combinations.

Without detailing further examples, it may be
said that this body of evidence was overwhelming.
It could be supplemented indefinitely, of course,
by examples from other plants in my experiment
gardens. But without further elaboration, the
examples cited in my first two catalogs sufficiently
establish the fertility of hybrids of many species
of widely different families.

Thenceforth there could never be any doubt
in the minds of practical plant developers that
true species, within certain limits of affinity, may
be interbred and produce fertile offspring.

[191]

LUTHER BURBANK

On the other hand, the examples of the straw-
berry-raspberry, and the petunia-tobacco might be
cited in proof that species too widely removed
from each other produce sterile hybrids.

Thus the experiments as a whole show on one
hand the method through which material is sup-
plied for the operation of natural selection; while,
on the other hand, they show how barriers are
ultimately erected that prevent crossbreeding from
being carried to an extent that would introduce a
chaotic element in the scheme of evolution.

The importance of such a demonstration as
this, made for the first time on a really compre-
hensive scale in the experiment gardens at Santa
Rosa and Sebastopol, soon came to be generally
recognized.

THE NEW EXPERIMENTS AND MENDELISM

Perhaps it may be of interest, in extension of
the present theme, briefly to trace the relation of
the new experiments to the particular aspect of
the theory of heredity that has most actively
claimed the attention of the biological world in
very recent years.

He refers, of course, to the doctrine of Men-
delism, which was to take the biological world by
storm in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Of course the results of the hybridizing experi-
ments performed in my experimental gardens and

[192]

LUTHER BURBANK

recorded in the catalog of 1893 could not be at
once interpreted in what are now spoken of as
Mendelian terms, because at that time no one
knew anything of Mendelism as such. The experi-
ments of Mendel had indeed been made just thirty
years before, and Mendel himself, as it chanced,
had died in the very year — namely 1884 — in which
my first importation of plants from the Orient, to
furnish material for experiments, was made. But,
as the reader is aware, the publication of Mendel
was altogether ignored, and nothing was heard of
his experiments until his paper was rediscovered
by Professor de Vries and by two others about the
year 1900.

But it is elsewhere pointed out that whereas
the Mendelian formula was not then in vogue, yet
the essentials of the aspect of heredity that Mendel
espoused were abundantly illustrated in the
hybridizing experiments, the results of which were
published in New Creations (1893) and its suc-
cessive supplements.

It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader
that the essentials of the aspect of heredity in
question had to do, as stated by Mendel, not so
much with the great mass of heritable characters,
as with some of the minor points of difference that
mark varieties within a species. Mendel himself
did not hybridize different species, or, if he did,

[194]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

the records of such hybridizing have been lost. His
essential experiments had to do with garden peas
and with the manner of transmission of the minor
difference between varieties of these peas — tall-
ness versus shortness of stem, purpleness versus
whiteness of flower, yellowness versus greenness
of pod, and so on.

But the peculiar manner in which these antago-
nistic pairs of qualities are given representation in
the offspring of parents having the opposite traits,
is precisely duplicated when the cross-fertilization
is similarly effected between allied species that
show corresponding diversities.

In each case, the essential fact is that certain
minor characters or groups of characters tend to
assume prepotency or dominance in hybrids of the
first generation; and that both the dominant and
the submerged (or recessive) characters appear
in the hybrids of the second generation segregated
and variously recombined, so that where several
pairs of qualities are under consideration, the off-
spring of the second generation constitute a most
heterogeneous lot, in which the diversified traits
of their grandparents are mixed and blended and
mosaiced together in every conceivable combina-
tion.

Not only were these essential facts clearly
revealed by my early hybridizing experiments,

[195]

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THE SUM OF HIS WORK

but they were succinctly expressed in the text of
New Creations, and the diversities of forms among
second generation hybrids were illustrated by
photographs showing many types of hybrid black-
berry and raspberry canes and leaves.

The diversity of second-generation hybrids was
illustrated by such other examples as the Phe-
nomenal Berry and two other hybrids listed in
the catalog under separate numbers and an-
nounced as of the same origin.

But for that matter, the segregation and re-
combination of characters in the second genera-
tion, leading to endless diversity or variation, was
illustrated in the case of every new variety named
in the entire catalog, with the exception of the
Paradox and Royal Walnuts and the Primus
Berry, these alone being first-generation hybrids.

Quotation has already been made as to the
"million kinds" of blackberry hybrids of the sec-
ond generation. It may be added that in the sup-
plement of 1894, a photograph was reproduced that
showed a "sample pile of brush twelve feet wide,
fourteen feet in height, and twenty-two feet long,
containing sixty-five thousand two- and three-year-
old hybrid seedling berry bushes (forty thousand
blackberry-raspberry hybrids and twenty-five
thousand Shaffer-Gregg hybrids) all dug with their
crop of ripening berries."

[197]

LUTHER BURBANK

It was stated in connection with this picture
that of the "forty thousand blackberry-raspberry
hybrids of this kind, Paradox is the only one now
in existence. From the other twenty-five thou-
sand hybrids about two dozen bushes are left for
further trial, but from these selected ones, won-
derful new berries are appearing whose forces are
so fixed in the right direction that they generally
produce good and productive seedlings."

It may be of interest, as giving farther insight
into the work, to quote the concluding sentence
which states that: "This pile of brush cost some-
thing like $700, and is one of fourteen similar piles
which were cremated on one of my places last

summer."

Of similar import is the account given of the
hybrid lilies, which were declared to be so varied
in character, thanks to the hybridizing of many
species, that "all the earth is not adorned with so
many new ones as are growing at my establish-
ment." A description of the varied characteristics
of some of these lilies, and two pages of illustra-
tions showing fifteen diversified forms, are intro-
duced by way of substantiation.

To the reader of to-day it may seem a work of
supererogation to dwell thus on the fact that ex-
periments, the results of which were published in
1893-1894, demonstrated so obvious a proposition

[198]

An Improved Bartlett Pear Orchard

This is an orchard of Bartlett pears, improved by utiliz-
ing the Burbank methods, which is earning one thousand dol-
lars per acre. Note the attractive and symmetrical form of the low-
headed trees; also the evidences of thorough
cultivation of the soil.

LUTHER BURBANK

as that hybrids are relatively uniform in the first
generation, and highly diversified in the second
and a few succeeding generations. But it must be
understood that this was the essential discovery
that made possible a large part of my successes in
producing new varieties by hybridization. And it
must further be recalled that the facts in question
were ardently contested by large numbers of the
leading botanists and the most authoritative stu-
dents of hereditary theory.

It was the demonstration made a thousand
times over at the experiment gardens at Santa
Rosa and Sebastopol that first showed in a com-
prehending and convincing way that such is the
operation of the principles of heredity in deter-
mining the characteristics of hybrid generations.

And, as has elsewhere been suggested there is
no doubt that it was these demonstrations that
prepared some of Mr. Burbank's most eminent
critics, including Professor de Vries, to accept the
Mendelian statement of this proposition when it
came finally to their attention.

It may be added that the subsequent history of
such aspects of the problem as came to be associ-
ated with the name of Mendel has shown curious
analogy with the history of the Weissmannian doc-
trines to which reference has been made in
another connection.

[200]

THE SUM OF HIS WORK

Just as followers of Weissmann were obliged
to shift their ground to meet the evidence brought
by new experiments, until finally all that remained
of their doctrine had been substantially har-
monized with and blended into the broader and
earlier theories of Darwinian heredity, only the
doctrine of the continuity of the germ plasm re-
maining as a permanent acquisition; so the attempt
to make "Mendelism" comprehend the entire sub-
ject of heredity, has necessitated a perpetual modi-
fication of the point of view, and an amplification
of the terminology to meet the facts of more com-
prehensive experiments, until Mendelism has come
to be harmonized with and blended in the more
comprehensive knowledge of heredity, leaving
only the formulae associated with dominance and
recessiveness to mark the individual contribution
of Mendel to the all-comprehending subject of
heredity.

— Into an atmosphere of in-
quiry and doubt and solicitude,
came the document from Santa
Rosa, ostensibly only a nursery
catalog, but conveying a mes-
sage on heredity that made
itself heard far beyond the
province of the nurseryman.

A Bed of English Primroses or "Cowslips"

This bed of flowers grew last season beside Mr. Bur-
bank's greenhouse at Santa Rosa. It shows how Mr. Burbank,
even when not working for a specific end, delights in getting a num-
ber of variations before him. He inspected these flowers daily during
'heir time of blossoming, and made selections among them; and
though at the time he had no very specific purpose in so doing,
it is more than likely that interesting results will
come of the primrose experiments before these
flowers are banished to make room
for some other claimants
of space.

LUTHER BURBANK— THE BEARING
OF His WORK ON HUMAN LIFE

— ON IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

STUDENTS of heredity are becoming more
and more agreed that the same laws and
principles apply to the organisms of the
vegetable and animal worlds. This is quite what
might be expected, considering the fundamental
identity of protoplasm, which is the physical basis
of all life. But quite aside from any theoretical
deductions in the matter, a wide range of experi-
ments with many types of animals has brought
conclusive evidence that striking analogies are
everywhere to be found between the manner of
transmission of traits and characteristics in plants
and animals.

Moreover observations of human genealogy
have shown that man himself is subject to pre-
cisely the same laws of heredity that apply to the
lowliest vegetable or animal organisms. We must
of course make allowance for differences incident

[VOLUME XII — CHAPTER V]

LUTHER BURBANK

to the elaborate organism of man, and we must
not forget that man differs from the other organ-
isms in that he can take conscious note of the
conditions of his heritage and of his environment
and can be guided in a measure by what he thus
learns.

This fundamental fact gives man a place apart
in the entire scheme of evolution. But it does not
remove mankind from the limitations imposed by
the laws of hereditary transmission. He can con-
sciously modify his environment and he can be
guided in his selections by his knowledge of
heredity; but he cannot free himself from the
thralldom of environmental influences or from the
inexorable limitations of his ancestral heritage.

In some respects, indeed, man is far more ham-
pered when he attempts to apply the laws of
heredity to his own race than he is in making
application of the same laws to the basis of tran-
sient animals under domestication. The necessi-
ties of the social organism that he has built up
place limitations on his freedom of selection in
the mating of individuals and even sharper restric-
tions on his selections among the progeny for the
parents of future generations.

Indeed, until very recently it has not been
thought fitting that man should give any considera-
tion whatever to the scientific breeding of his own

[204]

The South American Scilla

This picture, and a few succeeding ones, are introduced

as showing specimens of the plants with which Mr. Burbank's

newest experiments are being performed. A large bed of the South

American Scillas grew in his garden in Santa Rosa the past

season, undergoing the usual careful observation and

discriminating selection. The results will

be known in subsequent seasons.

LUTHER BURBANK

race, notwithstanding the obvious advantages that
have resulted from the scientific breeding of races
of plants and animals.

Of late, however, it has gradually dawned on
the intelligent people of the world that the laws of
heredity which confessedly apply to man might
rationally be given consideration in the breeding
of races of men. The new science of eugenics,
named and in large part originated by the late Sir
Francis Galton, has received an amount of atten-
tion in very recent years that it could not possibly
have hoped to receive had it been brought to the
attention of the public even twenty years ago. And
it cannot well be doubted that the demonstrations
as to the possibility of improving the races of
valued plants by selective breeding made at Santa
Rosa and Sebastopol have had their share in call-
ing public attention to the possible benefits that
may accrue from the systematic and intelligent
application of the principles of heredity.

A general appreciation of the unity of life-
forces as well as of life substances, due primarily
to the spread of the Darwinian doctrine, has pre-
pared the public to look with unbiased eyes for
the first time on the human race itself as an evolu-
tion product that owes its pre-eminence to the
conscious utilization of natural forces and that
may obtain still greater heights by the still more

[206]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

intelligent utilization of these forces. So it will be
accepted as a mere matter of course that we
should attempt, in completing the review of Mr.
Burbank's life work with the development of new
forms of plant life, to make application of the
practical knowledge gained in the experiment gar-
den to what might, without violence to words, be
described as the breeding of the human plant.

Such an application we shall now attempt,
concisely, yet with as much explicitness as is
warranted.

THE GREAT PRINCIPLE OF SELECTION

Even the most casual reader of this work will
be aware that the great fundamental principle that
guides us in all stages of our experiments in plant
development is the principle of selection.

We select first the kind of plant that is to be
utilized in a given series of experiments. We
select the best individual or individuals to be
found among the entire company of these plants
at our disposal. We select other individuals of
the same or of different species as mates before
cross-pollenizing, and in successive generations
we repeat these processes of selection and re-
selection over and over.

Now in the human family precisely analogous
processes of selection are being employed, con-
sciously or unconsciously, in every community. Of

[207]

The Abutilon or Flowering Maple

These are seedlings of the Abutilon Vitifolium, the mother

plant having grown for several seasons beside Mr. Burbank's

old homestead at Santa Rosa. The present experiments are designed

to produce improved varieties of this attractive flowering shrub.

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

course the selections are not usually made with
the definite and avowed object of producing
progeny of an improved type; but the inherent
affinities that lead to the selection of marriage
partners are themselves determined by principles
that might properly be said to be eugenic — pro-
viding artificial restrictions do not too greatly in-
terfere with the freedom of choice.

Generally speaking, men and women would
choose marriage partners having vigor and health
and beauty to the exclusion of those showing the
opposite traits, were free choice given them.

But, of course, under actual social conditions,
entire freedom of choice is impossible, and no fact
is more distressingly patent than the fact that large
numbers of persons who are obviously unfit to as-
sume the duties of parenthood nevertheless enter the
marriage state and bring forth abundant progeny.

Indeed, under existing conditions, it is the all
too general observation that the notoriously unfit
members of the community are the ones that
produce the largest families.

Now it requires no very profound knowledge
of the laws of heredity to understand that such a
condition of things is not conducive to the better-
ment of the race. No one could hope to produce
an improved variety of plants of any kind if he
had not freedom of choice in determining that

[209]

LUTHER BURBANK

the more desirable individuals should be mated
and their progeny preserved to the exclusion of
the progeny of the less desirable.

The entire foundation of plant improvement
depends, as we have all along seen, on such free-
dom of choice. And in proportion as the plant
developer selects wisely, chooses the individual
plants that have the best hereditary tendencies,
mates the right individuals, and rigidly selects the
best only among their progeny, can he hope to
progress in the direction of his ideal plant.

It would appear, then, that unless human
society can devise a means whereby a preponder-
ant number of the offspring of each successive
generation are the progeny of those members of
the community who are superior in body and mind
and morals, we cannot expect that the human race
will improve generation after generation.

Any colony of flowers left to breed indiscrim-
inately, good or bad, will inevitably degenerate
from the stage of culture to which artificial selec-
tion has brought it. The reason for this is that
the conditions imposed by cultivation are different
from the conditions of Nature and the special
development of the plant has taken place along
the lines of man's tastes and needs without special
regard to the needs of the plant itself.

But if you remove the artificial conditions, so

[210]

The Blue Flag

A prominent horticulturist has said that Mr. Burbank
cannot keep his hands off any plant that comes under his ob-
servation. His every instinct calls out to him to test the plant and
tee what can be done to better it. This blue flag is an illustra-
tion of a flower that is being thus tested, probably with-
out any very specific object. Not even Mr. Burbank
can tell what unexpected variations mag
show themselves, offering material for
Interesting developments.

LUTHER BURBANK

that the conditions of Nature again prevail, then
selection will take place in accordance with the
needs of the plant itself, and this will imply a re-
version, in the course of a few generations, to
something like the original wild state of the plant.
UNNATURAL STANDARDS OF CIVILIZATION

Now the conditions of human civilization are
no less artificial.

Standards of excellence among civilized men
are quite different from the standards of excel-
lence among barbaric races. We do not count a
man as the foremost individual in his community
because he has the physical ability to wield a
heavier club than his neighbor can wield, nor be-
cause of the ruthless freedom with which he exer-
cises his superior strength.

Among savage tribes mere physical strength,
coupled with brute cunning and ferocity, may
determine leadership. Such are the natural and
necessary standards so long as man is at war
with wild beasts and with other savage men that
know no law except that of physical supremacy.

But under conditions of civilization all that
has been changed. The standards of excellence
that determine the position of men and women in
any given community are mental and moral rather
than merely physical.

They are in the broad sense of the word un-

[212]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

natural standards, but they are the only standards
compatible with the persistence of the unnatural
state of society that we term civilized.

So it has come about that the condition of men
in civilized society is closely comparable to the
condition of plants in a hothouse or in a carefully
cultivated and weeded garden. The very condi-
tions of civilization make it as essential that the
human weed should be removed and the unfit
members of the community prevented from propa-
gating their kind as that similar principles should
apply in the hothouse or the flower garden.

Under the conditions of barbaric life, and ieven
under those of the high civilization of classical
antiquity, the principles of eugenic selection thus
implied were carried out with a good deal of rigor.
Even if the weaklings were not consciously re-
moved— and this was sometimes done — the stress
of living was such that the abnormal or weakly
infants were claimed by disease, and the adults
who lacked strength and intelligence were likely
to succumb to the attacks of wild pests, to starva-
tion, or to the onslaught of human enemies.

So the principle of selective or eugenic breed-
ing was all along applied, even when no one com-
prehended its meaning or gave it a name; and the
results are seen in the progress of humanity to its
present state.

[213]

LUTHER BURBANK

In very recent years, however, there has been
great progress in the way of ameliorating the en-
vironment, in particular the environment of child-
hood, through improvement in the understanding
of hygiene and the prevention of disease, so that
there is no longer the weeding out of the unfit in
infancy that occurred even a single generation
ago; so the generation of to-morrow are con-
fronted with problems of selection in the breeding
of the human race more urgent than ever before.

The problem is complicated by the fact that
the more intelligent members of the community —
precisely the ones that should be selected for the
propagation of the race — are prone to restrict the
number of their offspring, whereas the less desir-
able parents practice no such restriction.

The obvious tendency of this must be com-
parable to the condition of a flower garden in
which the best plants are restricted to the produc-
tion of one or two seed pods while the poorer
varieties are allowed to scatter their seeds by
indiscriminate thousands.

The plant breeder who permitted such a con-
dition to obtain in his garden would assuredly not
produce improved races of plants.

And the human system which permits such a
condition to obtain cannot hope to better the aver-
age condition of the human race.

[214]

The Parrot Bill Flower

This is a species of Clianthus which Mr. Burbank has

under careful scrutiny, and the possibilities of which, as to

variation, modification of flower, and the like, he is carefully testing.

Rare flowers and common flowers are of equal interest to

Mr. Burbank, as the reader is aware. In his eyes,

no flower is devoid of beauty and none can

justly be designated as "ordinary."

LUTHER BURBANK

As to the precise methods through which condi-
tions more in accordance with the improvements
of the future generations of our race are to be
applied, we shall attempt no details of sugges-
tion. It suffices to point out the principle and to
suggest that there cannot well be two opinions as
to the desirability of restricting the fecundity of
the unfit, however wide the diversity of opinion
as to the way in which this may be practically
accomplished.

THE ARISTOCRATIC AMERICAN RACE

Lest we seem to take a pessimistic view of the
situation, however, let me hasten to point out that
the average human plant in most communities of
America to-day is somewhat comparable to the
average plants in the most highly developed col-
onies of Mr. Burbank's experiment gardens.

The reader will recall the somewhat detailed
accounts that have been given of the cherry colo-
nies comprising 400 aristocratic families, and of
the various colonies of plums and quinces and
chestnuts and lilies and gladioli and Watsonias
and countless others that are similarly made up of
individuals exclusively of good breeding and of
desirable qualities.

Now, whoever will properly gauge the condi-
tion of the human garden of to-day, here in Amer-
ica, must realize that in general the races of

[216]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

human beings that make up the population are of
correspondingly aristocratic lineage.

Here of course we do not use the word "aristo-
cratic" in the conventional sense. We are referring
to the qualities that make a good and desirable
citizen; and mean to imply that the process of
crossing and selection has been carried out so
well for the past ten generations or so in America
that a race has been developed having a very high
average of those traits that determine "fitness" for
existence in a civilized community.

It is true that there are certain strains of
abnormality — of physical degeneracy, mental
obliquity, moral perversion — that have made their
way, generation after generation, like weeds in the
garden, and that must constantly be reckoned with
just as the gardener reckons with his weeds. But
the main body of citizens that make up the popula-
tion are at least moderately fit to live in harmony
with the normal environment of civilization, and
by the same token to reproduce their kind.

Unfortunately, however, there has been a very
pronounced tendency within recent decades for
the individuals who were reared under the health-
ful conditions of the farm and village to make
their way to the cities and to take up the relatively
abnormal life that is forced upon a majority of
the city population under existing conditions.

[217]

The Calceolaria

Another example of the almost numberless varieties of
flowers that are still undergoing tests at Santa Rosa. The read-
er has been told that not fewer than three thousand experiments are
carried forward together, and new flowers are claiming atten-
tion faster than old ones are perfected or discarded.

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

The offspring of these city dwellers are reared
in an environment radically different from the
healthful one in which their parents were reared.

They are crowded into dark, ill-ventilated
tenements, amidst surroundings that not only lack
the light and air and joyousness of the country,
but are often positively vitiated as to their mental
and moral no less than as to their physical
atmosphere.

It is as if we were to take the plants that have
been bred in the rich, well watered, carefully
weeded soil of a garden and transplant them into
an infertile, dry soil, choked with weeds and away
from sunlight.

By no chance could we expect the plants under
these conditions to attain full growth or to put
forth even a fair complement of flowers and fruits.

The Burbank giant amaryllis bulbs, which un-
der proper conditions will put forth splendid
stalks bearing flowers ten inches across, would be
reduced, under such altered conditions, to the
throwing up of meager stalks and, at best, the
production of a restricted number of dwarf flowers
little calculated to add to the reputation of the
plant developer.

THE POWER OF ENVIRONMENT

This matter of environment, then, goes hand in
hand with heredity and is a final determining fac-

[219]

LUTHER BURBANK

tor in deciding the character of the individual
product

It is quite useless to have practiced the most
rigid selection among plants for any number of
generations, and thereby to have produced varie-
ties of the most splendid possibilities — unless the
plants of the newest generation are given proper
soil and nourishment and sunshine they will come
to nothing.

And so it is with the human plant. Despite the
good heredity of generations of ancestors bred, let
us say, from the old Pioneer stock in New England
or Virginia or from the transplanted cions of that
stock in the Middle or Far West, the coming gen-
erations will be dwarfed and perverted representa-
tives of their race if they are denied a normal en-
vironment, particularly in childhood.

So one of the great problems that confronts the
humanitarian of to-day is the problem of provid-
ing a proper environment for the human plant.

In the decade covered by the most recent census
returns (1901-1910) the total population of the
United States increased by 21 per cent. But the
rural population increased by only 14 per cent, and
the city population by 38 per cent. There are entire
states in which the rural population did not in-
crease at all, and these were precisely those middle
western farming districts that supply the health-

[220]

A Selected Dandelion

Mr. Burbank delights in taking common plants of all
kinds and improving them through care and selection. Prob-
ably he had looked forward for many years to a time when he could
find a few moments of leisure to devote to the common
dandelion; and this plant is now being im-
proved under his tutelage.

LUTHER BURBANK

iest of all environments for the production of im-
proved examples of the human plant.

It is not meant to imply that the environment
of the city is necessarily unwholesome. But
it requires no argument to show that the average
city dweller is less favorably situated for the
development of normal children than is the aver-
age dweller on farm or in country village.

Children vitally need fresh air and sunlight and
the out-of-door life.

They need to be allowed to romp in the fields
and to come in contact with nature.

The city walls and pavements are a pitifully
inadequate substitute for the greensward and the
trees of the country. And a generation for which
this substitution has been made cannot be expected
to improve upon the traditions of its parent gen-
eration.

So the student of the human plant will do well
to give full attention to the question of improving
the environment of the human colonies with which
he is concerned.

The story has been told of the way in which the
soil of my experiment garden at Santa Rosa was
prepared and modified and even metamorphosed
until the conditions were attained that were fav-
orable for the growth of my plant charges. With-
out such attention to the physical environment it

[222]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

would have been quite impossible to produce the
improved races that have been developed at Santa
Rosa and Sebastopol.

And unless a way can be found to make the
average environment of successive generations of
human beings better and better — instead of allow-
ing it to become worse and worse — we cannot hope
that the generations of our grandchildren and
great grandchildren will maintain the average
standards of our own time, let alone improve upon
them.

EDUCATING THE SEEDLING

A word must be said also as to the influence of
environment in its bearing on the mental and
moral development of the individual in determin-
ing the bringing out or the suppression of heredi-
tary potentialities.

The mental and moral attributes of man may
be likened to the flower or fruit of the cultivated
plant, in that they are the qualities most recently
developed or transformed through selective breed-
ing. In token of their newness, they are the quali-
ties most easily altered or modified by environing
influences or by new racial blendings.

There are, for example, the qualities that are
prone to "Mendelize" in hereditary transmission,
as we shall see illustrated and interpreted in
another connection.

[223]

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IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

The direct influence of environment on these
highly differentiated and hence unstable charac-
teristics of plant or of man is easily demonstrated
in any experiment garden or in any social com-
munity.

But even the most deep-seated and funda-
mental qualities may be profoundly modified if
the environing influences are applied during the
childhood of the seedling plant or the human
subject.

"As the twig is bent the tree is inclined" is a
maxim the literal truth of which is apparent to the
least-skilled horticulturist. The application of the
maxim to the human sapling is equally familiar
matter of fact to even the tyro in human pedagogy.

A Shakespeare is not born with a fund of
knowledge and a profuse vocabulary stored in his
brain; but only with the receptive quality of brain-
fibre that will enable him — granted proper sur-
roundings— to acquire knowledge of things and of
words. Placed in childhood on a South Sea Island,
among savages, Shakespeare could have passed his
life without knowing a single word of the English
tongue, and without having even the vaguest con-
ception of the existence of a written language of
any kind.

This extreme example will serve to suggest the
extent to which the individual even of the very

[225]

LUTHER BURBANK

best heredity is dependent upon environment for
the bringing out of his inherent potentialities.

As another extreme example might be cited the
case of the child who becomes blind and deaf in
infancy through some accident or disease. Such a
child will commonly remain at a stage of mental
culture comparable to that of a congenital idiot.
Exceptional cases like those of Laura Bridgman
and Miss Helen Keller, in which, through infinite
effort, the other senses are made in part to com-
pensate for the loss of sight and hearing, building
up the brain through vicarious channels, serve to
give further emphasis to the fact under considera-
tion— the all-importance of the environing influ-
ences that we commonly speak of as "educational"
in completing the work which heredity carries
only to the nascent state of development.
THE MIXTURE OF RACES

Yet another respect in which the problems of
breeding a better human race in our day run
parallel to the problems of the plant developer is
with reference to the foreign materials that make
up the stock for the propagation of future genera-
tions.

It will be recalled that some of Mr. Burbank's
most important successes were achieved by blend-
ing the racial strains of plants brought from differ-
ent continents. Plants were imported from Japan,

[226]

r'/V

W-^ j

o/ Me O/d Homestead

Any house that Mr. Burbank occupied would be sure to

be vine-covered and embowered in foliage. This is the rear

entrance of the Old Homestead, and the one which Mr. Burbank

habitually uses when he visits the rooms of The

Luther Burbank Society.

LUTHER BURBANK

from New Zealand, from Siberia, from South Af-
rica, from Canada, from South America. Carefully
selecting among them, he inbred the species from
widely separated regions, and thus brought to-
gether racial strains that had long diverged.

And the results were often startling, and some-
times highly gratifying.

It is easy to draw the inference from the most
casual glimpses into the past history of our race
that the development of civilization has been
largely conditioned on the mingling of different
racial strains. It is scarcely too much to say that
each of the great civilizations of the past was built
by a mixed race. It was so in Egypt, in Assyria, in
Greece, and in Rome in the ancient days. It is true
of the important races of central Europe and of
Great Britain in modern times. And it is pre-emi-
nently true of the American race of our own day.

The point is too obvious for elaboration. No
one needs to be told that the colonial stock that
came to America in the early part of the seven-
teenth century was itself made up of mixed an-
cestral strains. And the most casual inspection of
statistics shows to what extent the increase of pop-
ulation of the past hundred years has been due to
the coming of immigrants from all parts of
Europe, including the representatives of nearly
every race of civilized men.

[228]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

That such mixing of racial strains, within cer-
tain limitations, is likely to result in the develop-
ment of exceptional individuals will not be doubted
by any student of the subject, least of all by the
plant developer who has produced striking results
by a corresponding mingling of divergent types.

But, on the other hand, it cannot escape atten-
tion that there are limits of crossbreeding beyond
which the plant developer may not advantageously
go. If he attempts to combine species of plants
that are too widely divergent, he either gets no
result or produces inferior progeny. And if the
races that are crossed lie just at the limits of
affinity, he may produce a progeny, that, particu-
larly in the second and later generations, become
so variable and diversified as to run counter in the
main to all of his plans and expectations.

We have seen this illustrated in many cases —
witness, for instance, the crossing of the tobacco
and the petunia, of the European and Chinese
quinces, of the oriental and opium poppies, and of
the various members of the genus Rubus.
THE NEED OF SELECTION

In some of these cases, to be sure, individual
forms were produced that had very exceptional
interest and that might even supply material highly
prized by the plant developer for the production
of new races.

[229]

Front Entrance to the Old Homestead

The Old Homestead stands near the street, with a huge

Chilean pine on one side (shown here just at the left edge of

the picture), and the famous hybrid elm on the other side. It is

almost buried in the massed foliage of vines.

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

But it must be recalled that the plant developer
always has full privilege of excluding the unde-
sirables from the hybrid fraternity. He can pick
out one or two individual hybrids showing desir-
able qualities, and can eliminate the thousands
that are unfit.

As a single illustration, let us recall the Phe-
nomenal berry, a hybrid between the California
dewberry and the Cuthbert raspberry. It will be
recalled that this individual plant was the only one
worth preserving out of a hybrid colony of many
thousand individuals.

The one valuable plant was carefully preserved
and nurtured. The thousands of undesirables were
piled in a heap and burned. The blending of
different racial strains had produced one highly
prized new specific form. Granted the privilege
of destroying the undesirables, the experiment was
eminently worth making and the results were alto-
gether gratifying

But wrhat if it had been incumbent on the plant
developer to preserve the thousands of undesir-
able hybrids?

Not all of them were altogether obnoxious, to
be sure. Yet a very large proportion of them com-
bined racial traits of remote ancestors in such a
way as to make them very unfit members of a
colony of cultivated plants.

[231]

LUTHER BURBANK

Lacking the selecting hand of the plant devel-
oper, which could ruthlessly rout out these unde-
sirables, the net result of the hybridizing experi-
ment would have been to produce a vast colony
of brambles far less desirable on the average than
their parent forms.

AMERICA, THE MELTING POT OF NATIONS

Making the application, it becomes at least a
very serious question as to whether the recent
altogether unprecedented influx of immigrants of
many widely divergent races — notably those that
have come from the Mediterranean region and
Southeastern Europe, from various provinces of
Russia, and from the Far East — are not supplying
material that, blended with the existing American
stock, may produce results as startling and on the
whole of as doubtful value as those produced
among plants when widely hybridized.

A certain admixture of new strains of these
varied races might not be without its advantages.
It has been urged that there are qualities of tem-
perament associated with a love of music and the
arts characterizing the Latin races, for example,
that might advantageously be mingled with the
somewhat cold and practical temperament of the
American race, to give it a new quality, just as
new flavors are bred into the racial strains of
plums or pears or peaches.

[232]

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LUTHER BURBANK

There is no gainsaying the possibility that such
blending may have its advantages. But there
seems danger at the moment that the matter may
be overdone.

When we read of the coming of as many as a
million three hundred thousand aliens in a single
year; and when-we are told that of those that come
from Southeastern Europe more than 35 per cent,
are of such undeveloped or atavistic types that
they are unable to read or write — we cannot escape
a feeling of solicitude over the introduction of so
high a percentage of blood of so doubtful a char-
acter into the strains of our developed colony of
American races.

It must be recalled that when the plant devel-
oper brings from Japan or from Europe or from
Asia a new race of plants to combine with his
native stock, he selects always the very best indi-
viduals that are to be found. Very commonly he
breeds the newcomers for successive generations
and makes repeated selections before he finds an
individual suitable for his hybridizing experiment.

He knows very well that if he were to choose
inferior members of any stock for his experiments
he would be working in the wrong direction, and
could not hope to produce improved races.

But the immigrants that are flooding in on us,
in particular those that come from Southeastern

[234]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

Europe, cannot even by the most liberal interpre-
tation be said to represent the best strains of the
varied racial stocks from which they have sprung.

They are in large proportion confessedly
inferior representatives of their races.

There is much evidence to show that they even
include large numbers of defectives, who, owing
to their alien tongues and habits, can with great
difficulty be properly adjudged by the immigrant
officials and denied admission in accordance with
the laws that are intended to prevent the coming
of the notoriously unfit.

THE GREATEST MIGRATION IN HISTORY

But even if it were supposed that a large ma-
jority of newcomers are really representatives of
the best of their alien racial strains, their coming
in such numbers would still make them objects of
solicitude to the student of heredity.

The American race of to-day has been built up
along certain lines not only of physical, but of
mental and moral development that have adapted
iHor a social and political environment that is far
different from that from which many of these
aliens come. Transplantation to the new environ-
ment may have a certain effect on the immigrants,
just as transplantation to the soil of California has
had its effect on large numbers of plants brought
from the Tropics.

[235]

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IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

But in one case, as in the other, such changes
are, after all, only matters of minor detail.

A plum tree transplanted from Japan may put
out a somewhat larger growth of twigs and a
somewhat larger and more highly flavored fruit
than was its wont in its native habitat. But at
best it remains unmistakably a Japanese plum.

The modifications wrought by the environment
are matters of detail; the fundamentals of hered-
ity, built up by thousands of generations of past
environments, are fixed beyond immediate change.

Nor can we doubt that the same thing is true of
the fundamental physical, mental, and moral
traits of the alien races that make up the great
army of immigrants that come to our ports in such
numbers as to make their migration, in all prob-
ability, by far the largest and most rapid migra-
tion of human races that ever took place in the
history of the world.

The total number of immigrants that have come
to America since 1880 — within the compass, there-
fore, of a single generation — is more than twenty
million.

This is a number in excess of the total popula-
tion of America at any census prior to 1850.

Such an influx of new blood must of necessity
change in very large measure the aggregate hered-
ity of the population of America. Whatever the

[237]

LUTHER BURBANK

American race was in the middle of the nineteenth
century, it is something far different to-day. That
at least is axiomatic, regardless of our estimate as
to whether the change has been an improvement
or otherwise.

The aggregate status of the population of the
plant colonies at Santa Rosa and Sebastopol to-
day has probably not more greatly changed from
the status of the colonies of 1886 than has the
average status of the American race changed in
the same period.

Doubtless it would be impossible for anyone to
gauge accurately the precise character of the mod-
ifications in one case or the other.

But in general terms it may safely be affirmed
that the members of the plant colonies have vastly
improved in the sense that they have been modi-
fied as to leaf or flower or fruit in such wise as to
make them better adapted to meet the needs and
tastes and desires of men.

Whether the crossbred population of America
has been similarly improved in its average adjust-
ment to the needs of a highly evolved social en-
vironment is a question that we shall not, at the
moment, attempt to decide.

Here, as before, it suffices to point out the con-
ditions and to suggest analogies with the cross-
bred plant colonies; but here also we must not

[238]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

overlook the fact that the plant developer's privi-
lege of weeding out the unfit members of his
hybrid colony may change the entire complexion
of the situation.

COUSIN MARRIAGES

As to all this we are taking a wide view and
considering the American race as a whole.

But in making the final interpretation, it will
be well to glance a moment at the needs of the
individual and to make application of one or two
principles of heredity to individual cases.

In so doing we are no longer considering the
question of the mingling of different racial strains
but more particularly the blending of individual
traits as presented in marriages contracted by
persons of the same race and even of the same
community.

Here we are obviously concerned with prob-
lems similar to those that confront the plant
developer who is making selection among the
members of an inbred colony, where his cross-
pollenizings do not involve different species or
varieties but only members of the same fraternity
or of closely related fraternities.

In such a case, it is axiomatic to say that the
plant developer selects the individual plants that
come nearest to his ideal, and combines them.

But of course it often happens that the plant

[239]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

developer is looking for the production or the
accentuation of some quality that may be said to
constitute an abnormality; whereas the human
eugenist is concerned above everything else with
the accentuation of normal qualities and the elim-
ination of the elements of abnormality. Neverthe-
less the experiments of the plant developer may
afford a demonstration of principles of heredity
that are susceptible of useful application.

It is fairly demonstrated, for example, that
there is no necessary deterioration brought about
by the crossing of plants that are related in the
degree which in the case of human beings we de-
scribe as cousinship. If the strain is normal and
healthy, and in particular if the cousins have
grown up under different environment, there is no
inherent objection to their mating. That is to say,
there is no hereditary reason why they may not
produce normal and healthy offspring. The great
difficulty, however, is that very few families are
quite free from one taint or another of disease or
infirmity, and the mating of cousins brings to-
gether the hereditary factors for this defect in
such combination as to accentuate them, and en-
hance the probability that the defect will make
itself manifest in the offspring.

Take, for example, the case of the wild heu-
chera with the crinkled leaf from which it proved

[241]

LUTHER BURBANK

feasible, by inbreeding, to develop a race of
crinkled-leaved heuchera. It would have been im-
possible to develop and fix this race so rapidly had
pains been taken to cross the plant showing the
peculiarity with a normal plant, instead of cross-
ing it with a cousin showing the same peculiarity.

In quite the same way such a human abnormal-
ity as a tendency to deafness or a malady of the
eyes or feeblemindedness or susceptibility to
tuberculosis may be accentuated through cousin
marriages and thus brought out in the progeny,
where, had mating occurred with a normal strain,
the tendency might have been indefinitely sub-
merged or even eliminated.

MENDELISM AND HUMAN MALADIES

It has been shown that the phenomena of
Mendelian inheritance apply to a number of ab-
normal conditions to which human beings are
subject. It seems fairly established, for example,
that normality of mind and feeblemindedness
constitute a Mendelian pair of unit characters or
unit groups in which normality is dominant and
feeblemindedness recessive.

It follows that the offspring of a normal indi-
vidual and a feebleminded one may be all normal
in mind; and if these individuals mate exclusively
with normal individuals, the character for feeble-
mindedness may be permanently submerged.

[242]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

But, on the other hand, if the individual nor-
mal offspring of the first filial generation were to
mate with other individuals having the same heri-
tage, the recessive trait of feeblemindedness would
reappear in a certain proportion of their offspring.

Obviously cousin marriages give opportunity
for the bringing together of such recessive traits,
and hence may cause the reappearance in the off-
spring of undesirable or abnormal characters that
might otherwise be suppressed.

In the celebrated series of experiments made
by Professor Biffin at Cambridge, England, it was
shown that susceptibility of wheat to the fungous
disease known as rust is transmitted as a factor
dominant to immunity.

Similarly it has been observed that immunity
to attacks of the aphis shown by the roots of the
Northern Spy apple is a recessive trait and hence
that the seedlings from the Northern Spy may be
susceptible.

These illustrations, among others, show that
susceptibility and immunity to disease may con-
stitute a Mendelian pair of factors that are trans-
mitted in a definite way. There is a growing body
of evidence to show that the same thing is true
with the human subject in case of susceptibility to
certain microbic diseases.

But it fortunately happens that in some cases,

[243]

IMPROVING THE HUMAN PLANT

at any rate, immunity to disease appears to be
dominant and susceptibility recessive, so that the
offspring of an immune and a susceptible indi-
vidual are all immune.

This appears to be the case, for example, with
susceptibility to tuberculosis.

The children of an immune and a susceptible
person appear to be immune, or relatively im-
mune, to the disease. And this is obviously a fact
of the very highest practical importance.

But we must recall that the children who are
thus individually immune contain in their germ
plasm the factors for susceptibility. So such indi-
viduals should exercise the utmost precaution not
to marry into families where there is a corre-
sponding taint of susceptibility to tuberculosis,
even though the individuals they select as mar-
riage partners are themselves healthy.

Here as in the other case just cited, the union
of two individuals who carry the hereditary fac-
tors of susceptibility submerged in their germ
plasm will result in the reappearance of suscep-
tibility as a tangible trait in about one in four of
the offspring.

Stated otherwise, in more general terms, it ap-
pears that there are a good many human traits
that are blended in such wise in the offspring of a
given pair of parents who present the trait, as to

[245]

LUTHER BURBANK

cause the undesirable trait to be latent and thus
seemingly to disappear from the fraternity; but
that a segregation and recombination of the hered-
itary factors may occur in the next generation in
such wise that the undesirable trait reappears.

We have just seen that the matings of persons
who carry an hereditary taint, yet who themselves
are normal, will determine whether that taint will
reappear in their offspring or whether the off-
spring will be normal.

In selecting a marriage partner, then, you are
selecting hereditary potentialities for your future
offspring. And in selecting environing influences
— in the broadest sense — for the offspring from the
hour of their birth, you are largely determining
whether the best or the worst of those hereditary
potentialities shall become realities.

In a word, then, we might advantageously ap-
ply to the human plant the same general principle
which we saw to be the most fundamental one
guiding us in our plant experiments, saying that
here, no less than in case of the actual plant, selec-
tion is the first and last word.

What was said in concluding an earlier chapter
with reference to plant breeding, may now ad-
vantageously be repeated with reference to the
breeding of human beings: "The beginning is
selection, and the end is selection."

[246]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

—WHAT IT HAS DONE
AND WHAT IT PROPOSES

ASIDE from the unquestioned value of his
own personal researches, the world owes
much to Prof. Hugo de Vries of the Uni-
versity of Amsterdam in Holland. It was Prof,
de Vries who discovered the writings of the monk
Mendel and interpreted them to the world.

And it was Prof, de Vries, who through a char-
acteristic description of Luther Burbank's work
set in motion the train of thought which later
crystallized into The Luther Burbank Society, an
organization brought together for the express
purpose of making Mr. Burbank's life work avail-
able to the masses; an organization without which,
it is quite likely, the world for many generations
to come would never have profited by the labors of
the modest plant experimenter of Santa Rosa.

The particular thing which Prof, de Vries said
came in connection with an appreciative account

[VOLUME XII— CHAPTER VI]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

of Luther Burbank's work and was a vivid esti-
mate of the tangible value to the world which even
minor improvements in industrial plants are
capable of producing.

"In the light of what has been accomplished",
said Prof, de Vries after a visit to Luther Bur-
bank's Experiment Farm, "it seems quite possible
to breed a new wheat, a new barley, new oats and
new corn, which will produce one grain more to
each head; or to bring out a new variety of potato
which will surpass the original kind, by the addi-
tion of a single tuber to each plant; or to improve
a tree to the extent of making it bear one more
apple, one more pear or one more nut, upon its
branches.

"Such transformations are insignificant, almost,
in comparison with the long list of spectacular
transformations which have been wrought — insig-
nificant, that is to say, from the standpoint of the
plant improver.

"It is only when we contemplate the astound-
ing monetary results that such apparently slight
changes produce, that we realize their importance.

"The addition of a single kernel to the ear of
corn, would, for example, in the United States
alone, produce an extra crop equal to 5,100,000
bushels — an annual addition of millions of dollars
to the farmers' pockets.

[248]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

"The addition of a single extra kernel to the
head means a fifteen million bushel annual wheat
increase; or a twenty million bushel oats increase;
or a two million bushel barley increase.

"A single extra tuber added to each potato
plant in America would mean a twenty-one mil-
lion bushel crop increase, with no more cost for
planting, cultivation or care, and the barest frac-
tion of a per cent., only, to be added to the cost
of harvesting.

"By such slight transformations as these, year
after year, the benefits, small as to the individual
plant, but astounding as to the aggregate, would
fall into the lap of the agriculturist, not only in
America, but everywhere on earth where plants
can be made to grow from the soil.

"And if their direct monetary benefits run thus
into the millions and hundreds of millions an-
nually, who can estimate the broad upward influ-
ence which such plant improvements will have on
society at large?

"Truly, they will be felt by all classes of people
everywhere — they will be shared even by those
who were not aware of their immediate causes."

Hand in hand with Luther Burbank's ambition
even in the darkest days of discouragement, and
almost from boyhood, was an earnest determina-
tion to give to the world the formulae and experi-

[250]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

ences for which he was paying so dearly. Through-
out all those years of patient experiment, he
looked always to the day when the art of plant
improving would cease to be an oddity and
anomaly, and would take its just place as the
recognized leader of the useful arts, since every-
thing we eat and wear and have, in some measure,
depends upon the things we raise from the soil.

He looked forward, always, toward the day
when every locality would have its plant experi-
menter, every state its men famous for their plant
transformations; and to that eventual day when
every farm must have its plot, large or small, de-
voted to the improvement of the things which give
it income.

It is not at all to Luther Burbank's discredit
that only now, in 1914, instead of in the 90's or 80's
his formulae and experiences are being given to
the world. Nor is it to the discredit of the world
itself, for attempts to accomplish this result have
been many.

It is rather to the credit of Luther Burbank, and
to the advantage of the world, that the promulga-
tion has been delayed, for, linked with Luther
Burbank's determination to give to the world his
methods and discoveries, was the equally firm de-
termination to make the presentation popular,
easily understandable, readily applicable, so that

[251]

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58 1

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2 2

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

his message might be sure of producing the great-
est measure of good for the greatest number.

It is not a simple task to put experience on
paper; to seek and find in a thousand experiments,
dismissed as failures, the three or the five import-
ant truths they concealed; to glean from the ex-
periments which proved successful the vital dis-
coveries which they have yielded, and to appraise
them in order of their real importance; to arrange
the facts in orderly piles and to squeeze from the
mass of theory, which has gone hand in hand with
the practice, those globules of probability neces-
sary to cement together a useful structure.

If we are to benefit by the experience of any
man, we must have before us not only the things
which he knows, but the things which he believes,
arrayed with an eye to relative importance, with
facts, figures, formulae, beliefs, theories, purposes
and hopes brought together into a state of unified
reconciliation.

It would be no small task to put on paper even
the simple experience of a shoemaker, a typeset-
ter, or a blacksmith in such a way that his children
might benefit by his successes, discoveries and ob-
servations. How much less easy, then, to put on
paper the experiences of a man who, for forty
years, has worked fourteen hours a day in a field,
which is all new, unmapped, unknown, almost—

[253]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

the experiences of a man who has tried more than
one hundred thousand separate experiments and
produced widely divergent successes by the hun-
dred— to simmer down such experiments and put
the results on paper for the man, who, as yet, is
hardly aware that such a line of experimentation
exists.

It was the difficulty of the task of presentation
which held back Luther Burbank's lifework from
the world these past twenty years; not any lack of
interest on the part of the world to know, nor any
lack of willingness on the part of Luther Burbank
to tell.

The best evidence of Luther Burbank's early
determination to make the results of his labors
available to the world lies in the fact that from
the very outset he kept careful, painstaking rec-
ords of everything that he did. No matter if
poverty pinched him, if neighbors criticised him;
no matter if series after series of experiments
failed him, as experiments often do; and no matter
how tired he was at the end of his long workday,
he stopped, before retiring, long enough to jot
down the record of his doings from sunrise to
sunset.

Unique in their simplicity, and characteristic in
many ways of their author, these records were filed
away as book after book was filled, against the

[254]

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THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

day when they were to be brought forth and put
into tangible shape for the benefit of the many.

The reader will find throughout these pages a
number of photographic reproductions which
vividly show the painstaking care with which
Luther Burbank, almost from boyhood, recorded
his experiments.

It was because of this long fixed determination
that when the Carnegie Institution of Washington,
nearly ten years ago, approached Mr. Burbank, he
willingly entered into an arrangement whereby his
work was to be given to the world through this
agency.

It is not to the discredit of the Carnegie Insti-
tution, or to the discredit of Luther Burbank, that
this effort, after a great expenditure of money and
a number of years of conscientious work, pro-
duced no fruit. Most great undertakings experi-
ence a number of false starts before they are fin-
ally launched on their way to accomplishment.
And such was the case with the beginnings of this
work.

Laboring alone, and many years in advance of
his time, it was not to be expected that Luther
Burbank could be interpreted in the language of
contemporary science. And in fact, with true
Yankee keenness, he much preferred that his bene-
fits be reaped directly by those who practice agri-

[256]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

culture, rather than by those who merely study
agriculture. If both classes could be equally
benefited, well and good; but if one had to be
slighted, then let it be the studier and not the
practicer.

With a willing heart, the able men appointed
by the Carnegie Institution co-operated with Mr.
Burbank, and the magnitude of the task, whatever
the viewpoint, became apparent as page after page
of manuscript was boiled together into what prom-
ised to become an interminable record.

After a number of years Mr. Burbank saw and
keenly realized that the work which had been
done fell far short of his ideals — whatever its sci-
entific value, it failed utterly to be the crystal clear
presentation for the benefit of the practical man,
which had always been his guiding ideal. So the
first step toward success ended in what, at the
moment, appeared to be but an expensive failure.

So, too, did succeeding steps — when publishers,
more or less capable, sought to put together the
Burbank records — resulting in nothing.

The commercial publisher of books, figuring
costs against profits, is no man to undertake a
work of this magnitude in which hundreds of
thousands of dollars must be expended before a
single sale could be made.

Thus, in the spring of 1912, a well informed

[257]

i ro *H Jif .55 /Tcie/4 c»)f/e «/.

A Record of Foreign Seeds

It will be seen that this is a record of seeds received

December 11, 1902, from a collector in India. Mr. Burbank is

constantly in receipt of seeds from all parts of the world, most of

them coming from people quite unknown to him. Careful

record is always kept of the name of the donor, and

such contributions are highly appreciated.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

analyst of the situation might well have come to
the conclusions that: (1) Luther Burbank's meth-
ods and discoveries, whether valuable or not, are
hardly likely to be given the world in any under-
standable form, since for so many years so much
money had been poured into the enterprise with-
out visible result; (2) the world will continue to
enjoy such of Luther Burbank's creations as have
been already distributed, but it is not likely that
other experimenters will be enabled to take up his
work where he is leaving off, while, on the other
hand it is extremely likely that the world must
wait for many years, perhaps centuries, for a new
crop of plant improvers to grow who will catch up
with this man who has lived so far ahead of his
times; (3) it is quite likely that Luther Burbank,
like Mendel, will die unappreciated, not because
the world would lack appreciation for such work
as his, but because, rather, there seems to be no
practical means of communicating to the world
what he anxiously desires to tell.

The analyst who would have come to these
conclusions need not have been a pessimist; he
might well have been an optimist who simply
looked the facts in the face.

It was at this stage that The Luther Burbank
Society was organized.

The underlying thought was that where one

[259]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

may fail, many may succeed; that from the mis-
takes of the past grow the achievements of the
future.

It would have been quite possible for those
friends of Luther Burbank who organized The
Luther Burbank Society to have enlisted the sup-
port of any one of several of America's philan-
thropic multi-millionaires; but in the light of his-
tory, this seemed the least advisable thing to do.

And so, after much consultation and many con-
ferences, the present plan of organization of The
Luther Burbank Society was devised — a plan
which enlisted the philanthropic support of many
members — some fifteen hundred of whom contrib-
uted of their means, and some five thousand oth-
ers of their abilities. In short, the plan of the
organizers of The Luther Burbank Society was to
interest a large body of philanthropic Americans
in the work, feeling that in numbers there was not
only strength but safety, and many other elements
of success.

With the organization of The Luther Burbank
Society in the spring of 1912, it was found that no
difficulty was to be experienced in enlisting repre-
sentative men and women in the movement, so the
undertaking was launched, and The Society came
into full fledged existence, being chartered by the
State of California for the purpose of "collating

[260]

Another Record of Foreign Seeds

This time, as will be seen, the seeds are credited to a
correspondent in Costa Rica. Observe the seeds are num-
bered, and that some are named, whereas others are only described as
"yellow flowered composite (shrub)," and the like. Note also
that the date of planting is recorded. The results will
be described in later pages of the record.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

and disseminating the methods and discoveries of
Luther Burbank of Santa Rosa."

As soon as The Society took definite form, and
its financial condition permitted, the work of put-
ting Mr. Burbank's methods and discoveries into
manuscript form was actively begun.

That it took just seventeen months to have the
first manuscript ready for the printer is no evi-
dence of laxity on the part of those active in The
Society's management, but rather serves to illus-
trate the magnitude of the undertaking, and to
convey an idea of the number and obstinacy of the
difficulties to be overcome.

There was produced during these seventeen
months of apparent idleness enough manuscript
to have filled many volumes the size of this pres-
ent set — not a single word of which appears herein.

This failure, too, to produce definite, tangible
results in seventeen months of earnest, strenuous,
capable labor, illustrates, too, why the Carnegie
Institution, working hand in hand with Mr. Bur-
bank, with its vast resources, and his willing co-
operation, failed — and why the publishing firms
which afterwards undertook the work had never a
chance of accomplishment.

In fact, after seventeen months of what then
appeared to be fruitless labor, the management of
The Society discovered that a beginning must be

[262]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

made anew, and that the mass of records must be
reclassified, recompared with contemporary sci-
ence, and rearranged to serve as the backbone of
the work.

This, together with the rearrangement of the
work done by those who had already been in The
Society's employ, was quickly effected, and the
whole matter placed in the hands of capable edi-
tors, whose scientific and literary qualifications
seemed to fit them peculiarly for the task.

As soon as the new editors took charge of The
Society's editorial affairs, with Mr. Burbank, as
always, loyally giving his time and support, the
work in hand began to assume definite final shape,
with the result that it was finished, complete, so
far as the Editorial Board of The Society and Mr.
Burbank were concerned, within six months, or
exactly two years, almost to the day, after The
Society had received its charter from the state.

Yet with the work done to the satisfaction of
Mr. Burbank and of the Editorial Board of The
Society, what, from many standpoints, was to be
the most important phase of the operation was
still to be begun.

This phase, absolutely unique in the making
of books, will need a word of explanation here,
in order that both its character and its importance
may be comprehended.

[263]

Record of Orchard Fruits

Here is a page of Mr. Burbank's notes that records data
concerning some thirty-seven varieties of fruit that were found
in the "Sebastopol orchard, third row," in the year 1895. It will re-
pay careful scrutiny, as illustrating the way in which a busy
plant developer saves time and space and yet produces
records that are invaluable jogs to the memory.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

The trend of modern times, the evolution of
things as they are, is to bring the maker of a thing
closer and closer to the user of it — to let the
eventual user himself decide the characteristics
which the maker is to embody in it.

We may take for example, as a parallel, the
manufacturer of clothing.

Twenty years ago the maker of clothing de-
signed what he believed his public wanted, and
without consulting that public, manufactured
large quantities which he sold through wholesale
and retail channels, with the result that the public
was wearing not the clothes it wanted, but the
clothes its makers, several steps removed, believed
it wanted. To-day, in the clothing business, the
situation is entirely changed. The maker of cloth-
ing manufactures not a single garment in advance
to carry in stock, but instead designs and executes
a wide variety of models, embodying the ideas of
the whole range from which the public might like
to select. Then with trunks full of these models
—models of clothing which can be ordered to be
made, rather than samples of clothing already on
hand to be sold — the manufacturer's traveling men
take to the road, visit the retail stores, which in
turn call in their leading customers; and based
upon the judgment of the retailer, who is close
to the customer, and of the customer himself, the

[265]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

manufacturer takes his orders for the coming year.

It is all, of course, as in plant life, a survival of
the fittest. By the old process the manufacturer
who made the closest guess survived, while the
others perished. By the new process, all manufac-
turers have an equal chance of survival, because
the question of to be or not to be has been pro-
pounded to the clothing itself and not to the
maker.

So, in almost all lines of trade — which, after
all, being the most acute fight for existence, is the
most ready exemplar of evolution — the tendency
has been to let the ultimate consumer shape, as
far as possible the qualities and characteristics of
the thing which he is to consume.

In almost all lines of trade this is true, but in
the business of writing books this new evolution-
ary tendency had not as yet made itself evident.

The procedure in the making of books has, as
always, been this: The author conceives an idea
which he believes to be of interest to a great num-
ber of readers; without consultation with those
readers he conceives a form of presentation and
writes his idea, or ideas into words which are
turned over to the publisher; and the publisher,
like the old manufacturer of clothing, without con-
sultation with his public, makes such changes in
the manuscript as he conceives his public would

[266]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

like to have made, and the whole thing is set into
hard, cold, unalterable type, and must stand or
fall on the goodness of the guesses which the
author and the publisher, having no expression
from the ultimate consumer, made.

At the outset, the management of The Luther
Burbank Society felt that here was a work so vit-
ally important that there was no man living who
would be competent of his own knowledge to say
whether or not its presentation was perfect; but
that instead, irrespective of delay or expense, the
public itself, which was to use and benefit from the
work, must decide the manner, form and detail of
its presentation.

It was this feeling, in fact, which led the found-
ers of The Society to choose its present form of
organization instead of enlisting the aid of a single
philanthropist.

For the members of The Luther Burbank Soci-
ety, as it was organized, performed a vastly
greater service than the provision of funds for the
work, great as that service was; the members
themselves, some sixty-five hundred of them in
all, representing every walk of life, farmers, bank-
ers, scientists, college professors, business men,
city dwellers, suburbanites, small town residents,
and open-country farmers, all vitally interested in
the work, to these men and women was submitted

[268]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

the manuscript prepared by Mr. Burbank and the
Editorial Board of The Society and it was their
suggestions and their comments which determined
the final form which appears in these volumes.

Thus it can truly be said of these books that for
the first time in the history of book making the
manuscript has been submitted to its every pos-
sible class of reader before it has gone into type,
and that it reflects the composite desire of what its
readers want, rather than the imagined desire in
the brain of the author and the publisher.

From the brief outline given here, it will be
seen that the Editorial Board of The Society found
much to do in the preparation of the bare manu-
script, itself — yet this was but one phase of its
duties. It was realized at the outset that hand in
hand with the manuscript there must go illustra-
tions as much better than the ordinary illustra-
tions as the manuscript itself was to be better than
the average manuscript.

At the same time that Mr. Burbank turned over
to the Editorial Board of The Society his volumi-
nous records, he also turned over some three or
four thousand black and white photographs which
he had had taken of his productions from time to
time throughout the years. At first thought it
might have seemed that these photographs would
have served admirably to illustrate the text; but a

[269]

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

second consideration would have shown that,
beautiful though they were, they fell far short of
accomplishing this ideal.

For these were but black and white photo-
graphs, and black and white photography as gen-
erally practiced, shows form only and little or no
color gradation.

That is to say, a bed of brilliant crimson pop-
pies appears in the ordinary black and white pho-
tograph as a mass of black flowers.

A bed of beautiful blue balloon flowers appears
in the ordinary photograph as though the flowers
were white.

In short, it will be seen that with yellow,
orange, and red flowers and fruits showing black,
and with blue flowers showing white, and with
the greens and blue-greens in an intermediate
tone, little can be portrayed of a subject which is
full of reds and yellows and greens and blues —
little justice can be done a subject which is all
color.

Add to this the fact, which the reader has
already gleaned, that color plays a vital part in Mr.
Burbank's work, and it will be readily seen that
the black and white photographs on hand that
April day in 1912, magnificent specimens of the
art as they were, were far from suitable for the
purposes in mind.

[270]

YELLOW

BLUE VIOLET

Color Photography Explained — 1

In order that a clear understanding may be gained of the
process employed in making prints on paper, such as are used
in these volumes, a series of nine prints will be shown here. The
first of this series, appearing above, shows the primary colors, red,
green and blue-violet, and opposite these are their complementary
colors, often incorrectly called the primary colors, blue-green, pink,
and yellow. Colors are said to be complementary to each other when
their separate rays combine to make pure white light. A
further explanation of the employment of these colors
will be found in the captions of the suc-
ceeding pictures of this series.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

So, at the same time that the Editorial Board
began to assemble its editors, it provided a photo-
chemical laboratory and purchased and brought
together in Santa Rosa, at great expense, a com-
plete photographic equipment.

At that time the beautiful color photography
process of Lumiere of Paris was just beginning to
gain headway in the United States, though a na-
tion-wide search failed to reveal an operator well
enough versed in the system to produce a high
percentage of satisfactory results. Experiments
were taken up at first hand, however, with the
result that in The Society's own laboratory it was
soon possible to produce uniformly perfect repro-
ductions on glass, in natural color, with great
fidelity.

It is doubtful if any other operator in this
method in the world has attained such efficiency
in working the color-photography process as was
attained in the laboratories of The Society — yet
this, as it developed, was but a beginning. The
process rendered beautiful color reproductions,
but in many ways these were inaccurate and the
plates themselves were far from being sensitive
enough to permit of the short exposures which
fruits on the tree and flowers in the garden require.

Thus, during the course of a number of months,
The Society's experimenters worked out a much

[272]

BLUE

BLUE

Color Photography Explained — 2

The first step in reproducing a print on paper is to sep-
arate the color positive made in the camera into its three re-
spective elements, namely its orange-red element, its green element
and its blue-violet element. This is done by photographing the color
positive successively through glasses covered with colored gelatine
corresponding to the three primary colors. For reasons which
will be explained later, the printing is made not in the
primary color but in its complementary color. This
picture shows the negative made by the
orange-red separation filter, printed in
its complementary blue-green.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

more highly perfected method than that with
which they began, enabling them to render every
color with absolute fidelity, even the most delicate
shades, and to obtain color records in the camera
in one-thirtieth and one-fiftieth of a second, which,
from all practical aspects may be called instan-
taneous exposures.

Once all the factors of this new method were
perfected, the systematic recording of all of Mr.
Burbank's products and methods was begun. It
was found, however, that many of the subjects
which had been illustrated by the black and white
photographs had wholly disappeared; and in or-
der that the color records might be complete, Mr.
Burbank re-performed many of his old experi-
ments, so that color photographs might be taken of
them. Every experiment which Mr. Burbank had
under way, and those which he undertook a sec-
ond time were carefully photographed in color,
and then The Society's staff of photographers was
dispatched to different parts of the United States
for the purpose of securing such illustrations as
could not be obtained on the home grounds, but
which were needed to make the work complete. In
all, nearly twelve thousand color plates were made,
about ten per cent, of which, or 1,260, are repro-
duced in these volumes.

As soon as the photographing of the subjects

[274]

RED

Color Photography Explained — 3

This picture shows the second successive color separa-
tion, namely the one made through the green gelatine coated
glass, printed in the complementary pink. It will be seen that each
separation cuts out its own color, making it appear
white, and lets the other two colors in,
graded according to their intensity.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

had been put under definite way, the next diffi-
culty to be overcome was that of reproducing these
on paper, for use in the books, monographs and
other publications of The Society.

At the time these experiments were under-
taken, nothing whatever of practical value had
been accomplished along this line, and the work
which The Society's experimenters did may be
judged by the color prints on paper in these
volumes.

With the text complete and in the hands of the
members of The Society for corrections and sug-
gestions, and with the color illustrations prepared
and a means of reproducing them on paper de-
vised, there were yet many minor, but none the
less difficult, problems to be surmounted. The
problem of binding alone, because of the tipping
in of 1,260 separate color prints, was entirely new
and required unique treatment. It seems hardly
worthy of great explanation at this point, but if
the reader were to see the hundreds of sample
volumes submitted by various binderies and to
compare them with the new method devised for
the purpose and embodied in these books, he
would at once realize that many months of con-
centrated study were devoted to this subject.

The text printing, the type made from The
Society's own matrices, the paper made according

[276]

YELLOW

YELLOW

YELLOW

Color Photography Explained — 4

This shows the third successive stage in separating the

elements of a color positive — it is the picture made through the

blue-violet dyed gelatine color filter, printed in its complementary

yellow. The original color positive with which we started

has now been separated into its elements and the next

stage, beginning with the following picture,

will be to recompose it on paper.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

to The Society's own specifications in a special
mill run, all of these and many other details, small
individually but large in the aggregate, proved
time-consuming, energy-eating problems, which
had to be solved.

It will be seen, thus, that The Society's first
work was to arrange and classify Mr. Burbank's
voluminous records, covering the entire field of his
experiments, to make the necessary comparisons
with contemporary science, and to write the whole,
first into a lucid, easily understood exposition at
the same time illustrating all of his methods and
discoveries in natural color, and to put the whole
into book form so that each phase of every opera-
tion might be made crystal clear to the reader,
whether his interest be general or specific.

With the completion of these twelve volumes
the first cycle of The Society's operations thus is
accomplished.

But it is not meant by this that The Society's
work is at an end — in fact the most important
work is yet to come.

With all of Mr. Burbank's work charted,
mapped, analyzed, classified, with contemporary
science and practice placed in parallel in accessible
form, and with all of the records of State and Gov-
ernment Experiment Stations and many records
generously donated by individual experimenters,

[278]

Color Photography Explained — 5

In this picture the green and blue-violet separations, last
shown, are here superimposed in their complementary pink and
yellow. It is possible to gain the same effect by recomposing the orig-
inal colors of the separation, but for several reasons this is not the
most practical method of operation. One reason is that the separa-
tions such as the last three shown are really negatives and
by printing the negative in the complementary color the
result is theoretically the same as would be gained
by printing a positive in the original color.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

The Society has at its command a fund of usable
information such as has never before been brought
together in the interest of a single line of knowl-
edge.

All that has been hoped of the present volumes,
of which this is the concluding one, is that they will
serve to stir up a broader interest than has ever
been known in this vital subject; that they will
acquaint the general reader with the importance
of the work and give the practical beginner a fair
start toward his goal. All that has been expected
of these volumes is that they will be the beginning
of what must become a world-wide movement.

If The Society's work is to reach its maximum
result, this set of books must be but the forerunner
of many millions of pieces of printed matter which
shall give guidance to those who take up the study
of improving living things, whether plant or hu-
man. And for this work there is already in The
Society's vaults ample material on hand.

Already, coincident to the publication of these
books, The Society has found the time and means
to publish and prepare for distribution a series of
monographs, each dealing with some specific phase
of gardening, fruit growing, flower raising, farm
management, and kindred subjects. Already there
has been prepared a separate series dealing with
the improvement of the human plant, consisting

[280]

\

Color Photography Explained — 6

This shows another phase of the recompositton, being
the green and red separation plates printed in their comple-
mentary pink and blue. It will be noted that in the last picture the
pink and yellow combine to make the spectral red, which has
no blue in it; while in this picture the pink and blue-
green combine to make the spectral blue-
violet, which has no yellow in it.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

of a number of monographs covering as broadly as
possible within the space at hand, the whole sub-
ject of heredity and environment as applied not
only to the production of better races but to the
production of better individuals.

In all some two million pieces of educational
printed matter of one kind and another have been
distributed.

That this is but the beginning, however, may be
seen from the comprehensive plans already laid
out which include the following :

First. The preparation of a series of even more
intensive monographs on the improvement of the
human plant, with specific illustrations from many
sources, and with the definite applications brought
home as closely as possible to the individual
reader.

Second. The preparation of a series of popular
monographs on the application of mental forces to
the improvement of individual human life — phys-
ical and moral — from facts which have come as a
sidelight to Mr. Burbank's work.

Third. The preparation of a series of popular
monographs on specific farm methods, showing
the most profitable plants and crops, differentiated
by climates and localities, with a view to getting
the average agriculturist out of his rut and forging
forward on a better plane.

[282]

YELLOW

Color Photography Explained — 7

In this picture the blue and red separation negatives are

shown as printed in their respective complementary yellow and

blue-green colors. Here it will be seen that the yellow and blue-green

together make up the spectral green shown in the first

print, and that this illustration, together with the

last two hav? each combined to produce

one of the three original colors.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

Fourth. The preparation of a series of large
wall charts describing and illustrating, in natural
color, flowers, fruits, vegetables, trees, grains and
grasses — a graphic method of nature study for
children, which educational authorities have pro-
nounced more efficient and practical than the
present botanies in book form.

Fifth. The organization of a lecture bureau
and the preparation of motion picture films for the
illustration of improved methods, to be sent
throughout the rural districts and throughout the
cities and towns as well, for the purpose of vividly
illustrating the necessity of the work and the means
of accomplishing results.

Sixth. The classification of all records and
data not now classified, with a view to inaugurat-
ing an individual information service for all those
engaged in, or interested in soil culture.

Seventh. The publication of a periodical pre-
senting the actual experiences — successes and fail-
ures— of those engaged in or interested in plant
or human improvement, affording a forum for
the profitable exchange of practices and ideas.

Eighth. Additional laboratory work with color
photography, with a view to making it more widely
available, with the idea that the public should ben-
efit by all of The Society's activities, of which this
has by no means been an unimportant part.

[284]

Color Photography Explained — 8

In this illustration we see the red, green and blue-violet

separation negatives reccmposed in their complementary colors

of blue-green, pink and yellow, with the result that a print on paper

is produced which corresponds exactly with the original copy

shown in number one of this series. The recomposition

may be made either by photographic or mechanical

means, a combination of many well known

processes, however, giving the best results.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

Ninth. The preparation and publication of text
books for popular and schoolroom use, to be issued
through some commercial publishing house, with
the idea that the royalties derived from these and
other publications will provide a permanent source
of income to sustain The Society in its work.

As to finances, The Society's expenses have
been promptly met by the subscriptions of the Life
Members, with the result that the progress already
described has been achieved, and The Society finds
itself clear and free of debt.

The sale of a popular edition of this first expo-
sition in twelve volumes has been placed in the
hands of publishers on a basis which will insure
The Society an annual income without recourse
to the solicitation of contributions; and the
sale of other later publications, including text
books, will be placed in the hands of publishers on
a royalty basis, so that not only has the success of
the original idea been achieved, but, in addition,
preparation has been made for the furtherance of
The Society's work in the future.

Inspired by the observation of Prof. Hugo de
Vries, the organizers of The Society may well feel
that the popular response to The Society's an-
nouncements gives ample proof that interest is not
lacking; and the promise of the Future, from the
work already done, is not only that Luther Bur-

[286]

Color Photography Explained — 9

7n this illustration is shown some of the special equip-
ment devised for this work. These lamps, of nearly nine thou-
sand candle power, were used in making a number of the pictures
which could be made indoors — such as those of flowers and fruits
which could be brought to the laboratory. It will be noted that the
reflecting surfaces of these lamps, instead of being white, are a
yellow-green, which color was used for the purpose of
correcting the color of the light itself, a device of
one of The Society's experimenters which it
is believed was for the first time
employed in this work.

THE LUTHER BURBANK SOCIETY

bank's work will be continued, instead of being
permitted to die with him, but that it will be con-
tinued on a much vaster scale and that the world
will soon profit from the efforts of a thousand new
Luther Burbanks, scattered everywhere, who have
the advantage of avoiding most of his discourage-
ments and many of his failures — who, in a word,
take up the work where he leaves off.

[END OF VOLUME XII.]

— The addition of a
single kernel to the
car* of corn, would,
in the United States
alone, produce an
extra annual crop of
5,100,000 bushels.

LIST OF

DIRECT COLOR PHOTOGRAPH PRINTS
IN VOLUME XII

Abutilon

The Abutilon or Flowering Maple.

535

Apples

Gathering Apples at Sebastopol 54

Blue Flag

The Blue Flag 211

Luther Burbank

Burbank Day at Santa Rosa Frontispiece

Mr. Eurbank's Mother

Luther Burbank's Birthplace

Where Luther Burbank Was Schooled 12

Luther Burbank at the Age of Nine 15

Luther Burbank at the Age of Fourteen 17

Luther Burbank at the Age of Seventeen 19

Luther Burbank at the Age of Twenty-five 21

Luther Burbank at the Age of Fifty 106

Mr. Burbank's New Home in Santa Rosa 141

Mr. Burbank's Porch 143

Another View of Mr. Burbank's Porch 145

Mr. Burbank's House as Viewed from Across the Street... 147

Mr. Burbank and Dr. Hugo de Vries 149

Mr. Burbank Gathering Poppies 152

Mr. Burbank with a Gigantic Crinum Bulb 157

Mr. Burbank in an Oriental Setting 160

Mr. Burbank's Home Yard Filled with Red Poppies 233

Side View of Mr. Burbank's Home 236

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued)

Luther Burbank Homestead p&ge

The Old Homestead in Autumn 224

Rear of the Old Homestead 227

Front Entrance to the Old Homestead 230

Another View of the Old Homestead 240

Old Homestead as it is To-day 244

Luther Burbank Society

The Society's Information Bureau 249

Home of the Luther Burbank Press 252

Book for the Blind

A Burbank Book for the Blind 163

Calceolaria

The Calceolaria 218

Cherry Orchard

A Burbank Cherry Orchard 190

Color Photography

271, 273, 275, 277, 279, 281, 283, 285, 287

Dandelion

A Selected Dandelion 221

Grape Vineyard

A Paying Burbank Grape Vineyard 196

Medals

A Burbank Product Highly Honored 166

A Burbank Medal 169

Another Burbank Medal 172

A Medal from the California Academy of Sciences 175

A Gold Medal from the Pan-American Exposition 178

A Medal from the California State Agricultural Society 181

A Medal from the California State Floral Society 184

Parrot Bill Flower

The Parrot Bill Flower or Clianthus 215

Pears

An Improved Bartlett Pear Orchard 199

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued)

Planting Page

Marking Rows for Planting 39

Potatoes

The Purchaser of the Burbank Potato 25

Luther Burbank's First Advertisement 57

A Paying Burbank Potato Patch 193

Primroses

A Bed of English Primroses or "Cowslips" 202

Prunes

A Burbank Prune Orchard 187

Records

Burbank Records 255

A Record of Foreign Seeds 258

Another Record of Foreign Seeds 261

Record of Orchard Fruits 264

A Diagrammatic Record 267

Santa Rosa Views

A View at Santa Rosa 60

Another View in Mr. Burbank's Gardens 63

Strange Bedfellows 66

A Santa Rosa Tangle 69

Vegetation of Many Types 71

Quantity Production 73

Mr. Burbank's Back Yard 75

A Bird's-Eye View 77

Midsummer at Santa Rosa 79

Another Midsummer's View 81

Cactus, Canna and Grasses 83

Another View of the Famous Elm 85

Early Autumn at Santa Rosa 87

Over the Strawberry Bed 89

At the Height of the Season 91

Across the Cactus Field 94

Cactus Plants of the Newest Generation 97

At the End of the Conservatory 100

Tropical Luxuriance 103

Sebastopol Views

Bird's-Eye View at Sebastopol 109

Watsonias at Sebastopol 112

Another View at Sebastopol 115

A Near View of the Sebastopol Farm House 118

Days of Preparation at Sebastopol 121

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued)

Page

Flowering Time in the Sebastopol Orchard 124

Crinum Beds — and Others 127

A Briar Patch at Sebastopol 129

Gladiolus Beds at Sebastopol 132

Cherries, Plumcots and Other Orchard Fruits 135

A Sebastopol Pot Pourri 138

Scilla

The South American Scilla. . 205

Seeds

Washing Seeds 43

Covering Seeds with Sand 45

Seeds in the Greenhouse 47

Rare Seeds in Common Receptacles 49

Seeds Drying in the Open 52

Sieves

An Assortment of Sieves 33

A Collection of Sieves 35

Tools

A Simple but Important Equipment 28

A Crude but Effective Implement 31

Soil-Stirring Implements 37

Trench

Setting Out Small Seedlings 41

LUTHER BURBANK

HIS METHODS AND DISCOVERIES AND
THEIR PRACTICAL APPLICATION

PREPARED FROM
HIS ORIGINAL FIELD NOTES

COVERING MORE THAN 100,000 EXPERIMENTS

MADE DURING FORTY YEARS DEVOTED

TO PLANT IMPROVEMENT

WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF

The Luther Burbank Society

AND ITS
ENTIRE MEMBERSHIP

UNDER THE EDITORIAL DIRECTION OF

John Whitson and Robert John

AND

Henry Smith Williams, M. D., LL. D,

SUBJECT INDEX
VOLUMES I- XII

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

ABIES Balsainae... XI
Abies nordmau-

niana XI

Abundance Plum V

Acacia I

Achievements XII

Acquired Traits II

Acrostis fontanesi VIII

Actinidia VI

Actinidia polygima... VI

Aerial Potatoes VII

African Marigold X

Agassiz XII

Agrostemma X

Air VII

Alaska Shasta Daisy. II

Aletia argillacea VIII

Alexander Apple IV

Alexandria Grape VI

Alfalfa VIII

Algae I

Aliens X

Allelomorph II

Allen's Antwerp Ras-

bsrry VI

Allen's Red Prolific

Raspberry VI

Alliums VII

Almond IV

XI
XII

Alovsia citriodora X

Alsika Clover VIII

Alstroemeria VII

Alstroemeria Brasili-

ense VII

Alstroemeria Chilensis VII
Alstroemeria pulchella VII
Alstroemeria pardalium IX

Amaranthus X

Amarillo Cactus VIII

Amaryllis IX

Amaryllis belladonna. IX

Amber Grape VI

Amber Sugar-Cane .... VIII
America, The Melting

Pot of Nations XII

American Cowslip X

American Plum V

American Walnut XI

Ampelopsis X

Ampelopsis arborea... X
Ampelopsis h e t e r o-

phyla X

Ampelopsis vitchi X

Anacantha Cactus VIII

Ancon Ram Story.... II

Page. Vol. Page.

257 Anemophilous Plants. Ill 70

Angus Quince IV 212

288 Animal Cells VII 22

38, 70, 251 Anona cherimolia IV 302

43-46 Anthers Ill 88

107-154 Anthonomus grandis. .VIII 122

29-38 Anthox anthuin VIII 289

293 Ants Ill 211

251 Apex Plumcot V 296, 298

252, 254 Aphides Ill 141

136 Apostates Ill 66, 67

174 Apple Ill 120

11 IV 12, 23. 25,

263 177-210

17-22 V 178

34 Apple Plum IV 26

122 V 36

192 Apricot Ill 120

202 IV 241-271

Aquilegia X 49

Aquilegia coerulea X 50

Arbutus VI 264, 265

Arderne, H. W IX 273

X 23
Aristocratic American

Race XII 216-219

Arizona Everbearing

Strawberry VI 96

Aronson VIII 72

Artichoke VII 182-190

Asclepsis cornuta Ill 205

XI 252

Ash VI 266

Asparagus I 252

VII 222

Aster X 72

Atavism II 54-72

Atropa belladonna VI 112

Aughinbaugh D e w-

berry VI 54

Austria Canna IX 239

Australian Macadamia IV 302

Australian Star-flower X 136

BACILLUS, amolov-

orus IV 126

Bailey, Prof. L. H. Ill 252

VII 54

Bake-Apple Berry VI 150

Baldwin Apple Ill 154

IV 192

Balloon-Flower X 7-38

Balsam Fir XI 257

Banana IV 32

Banana Melon VII 44

Banksias . IX 63

28, 29

135-166

67

43

43

152-155

160

20, 63-94

90

117

95

260

260

260, 262

260

265

267

189

71-101

97

206

150

232-239

62, 64

203

35

215

216

216
215
189, 192

[295]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Page.

Barbary Fig Cactus.. VIII

190

Barberry

88

Ill

78

VI

239

"Bark" Grafting Ill

178

Barley VIII

45, 46

Barr, Peter X

188

Bartlett Pear IV

123, 138

Bartlett Plum IV

26

Bassford, H. A IV

223

Basswood XI

178

Bateson, Prof II

100

Beach Plum V

203

Bean Ill

72

VII

96-108

Bean Tree, Jumping. . I

98

Bear Story

36-38

158

Beauty Plum V

36, 74, 82,
254

242

VII

111

Bee I

177

II

201

III

208-219

Beech XI

176

Beecher, Henry Ward. IV

211

Bell-Flower X

36, 230

Berberis acrifolia VI

244

Berberis buxifolia VI

243

Berberis fremonti VI

246

Berberis repens VI

244

Berberis vulgaris Ill

78

VI

242

Berckmans, J. P V

34

Berckmans Plum V

38

Berger Co., H. H VI

246

Bermuda Grass VIII

293

Beurre Clairgeau Pear IV
Bldens atrosanguinea . IX

26
226
178

Biffin, Prof. E. P.... Ill

26, 28, 112

VIII

54-76, 129

IX

148

227

Birch Tree XI

292

Bird Cherry IV

97

Birkeland, Prof. Chris-

tian VIII

105

Birthplace of Burbank XII

18

Blackberry, Thornless VI

7-S8

Blackberry, White II
III

39-72, »7
24

Blackcaps VI

138

Black-cap Raspberry . . VI
Black Dahlia IX

42
226

X

178

Black-Eyed-Susans ... X

20

Black Tartarian Cherry II

211

Bloed Plum of Satsuina V

14, 29

258

Bloomeria aurea VII

258

Blossoms of Fruit

Trees T

180

Bluebell IX

168

Bluebells of Scotland X

57-59

Blue Grass X

243, 244

Blue Poppy IX
Bodega Red Potatoes. VII
BodinghauB, M IX

104-133
296
172

Vol.
Body Plasm X

Page.
99, 101

Bolivian Peach IV

170, 172

Boll- Worm VIII

122

Bonfire I

202-206

Bon Sllene Rose IX

45

Bordeaux Mixture.... II

130

IV

50

Boston Ivy X

215

Bourbon Hose IX

45

Boxes for Seedlings.. Ill

122

Boyhood of Burbank.. XII

7-59

Brandywlne

Strawberry VI

96

Brazilian Morn-

ing-Glory X

183

Breeding Giants IX

72-77

Brevoortia VII

258

Bridal-Rose VI

262, 264

Broccoli VII

61

Brodiaea VII

252-258

Brodiaea capitata... VII

252, 255, 257

Brodiaea lactea VII

254, 255

Brodiaea laxa VII

255

Brodiaea terrestrig. . VII

255, 257

Brodiaea volubilis... VII

252

Bromus gigantius... VIII

283

Bromus inermis VIII

283

Bromus mollis VIII

286

Broom-corn VIII

146-150

Brown, Hon. J. T VII

282

Brucine VIII

80

Brunsvigia IX

81

Brussels Sprouts VII

63

Bryant, Walter VII

226

VIII

189

Buckeye XI

263

Buckwheat VIII

300

Budding Ill

186-195

Bulb Division X

90-105

14, 15

Burbank Canna IX

239

Burbank, Prof. Lev!

Sumner XII

11

Burbank, Luther XII

7-246

Burbank (Luther) So-

ciety XII

247-288

Burbank, Samuel Wal-

ton XII

13

Burbank Cherry II

226

Burbank Giant Rhu-

barb VII

210

Burbank's Hybrid

Larkspur X

173

Burbank Plum V

26, 38, 70,
270

Burbank Potato VII

267-294

223

Burbank Rose IX

41-62

Burbank's Sunset

Shades of Shirley

Poppies IX

121

Burdock VII

205

Burpee IX

211

Burr Clover VIII

92

98

Burrows, Dr. Mont-

rose W V

20

Bush Bean VII

106

Butterfly Experiment. Ill

210
64-57

[296]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Page.

Vol.

Page.

CABBAGE VII

60-66

Catalpa XI

298

^j Cactus I

7-26, 107, 108

Cathay Pear IV

226

VI

213-236

Cattle Fodder VIII

209-240

VIII

169-269

Cauliflower VII

61

XII

51

Ceanothus VI

59

Cactus Pear VI

213-236

Cecil Bruner Rose.... IX

55. 60

VIII

243, 245

Cereals Ill

223

California Black Wal-

Cereus VIII

172

nut II

137, 138, 143,

Chabot Plum V

38

146, 158

Chalco Plum V

223

XI

41, 162

Chamaerops Excelsa.. X

211

California Cactus VIII

209

Chamaerops excelsior. X

209

California Holly-Leaf

Champion Quince IV

212

Cherrv IV

99

"Cheat" X

263

California Lily VII
California Shasta

262

Chemical Irritability. Ill
Chemical-Y 1 e 1 d i n g

212, 218

Daisy II

36

Plants VIII

133-167

California Thistle VII

200

Cherimoya IV

302

California Wild Plum V

203, 216

Cherry I

105, 198-210,

Calla IX

248-257

264

Calla, Scented II

73-101

II

201-233

IX

248

III

13, 20

Calyx Ill

85

IV

14, 22, 69-104

Camassia VII

239-251

V

178

Camassia Cusickii.. VII

243, 246

Cherry Plum V

220

Camassia esculenta. VII

243, 246

Chestnut XI

7, 14, 95-129,

Camassia Fraeerl... VII

243

178, 263

Camassia Howellii. VII

243

Chestnut Fungus XI

110-116

Camassia Lelchtlinii VII

242

Chestnut Oak XI

124

Campanula X

57-59

Chestnut Orchard.... XI

115-122

Canada Balsam XI

257

Chewing Gum XI

258

Canada Crookneck

Chickasaw Plum V

203, 204

Squash VII

62

Chlco Cactus VIII

209, 242

209

Chicory, Wild I

97

Candle Berry XI

266

Chllds, John Lewis... VI

262

Oanna IX

235-244

Chilean Bell-Flower. . X

230

Canna Saccida IX

236

Chilean Clovers VIII

92

Canna iridiflora IX
Cannabis sativa VIII

Capillarity VII
Capri Fig IV
Caprlola VIII
Carawav VII

238
108
139
18
297
293
156

Chilean Cress VII
Chilean Hemp VIII
Ghiloe Squash VII
Chinese Balloon-
Flower X
Chinese Bellflower X

169
301, 803
58

7-38
36

Carbohydrates VIII

Chinese Cucumber

Cardoon VII

186

Quince IV

226

Cnrduus •marianus. . . . VII

202

63

Careless Weed X

267

Chinquapin XI

100

Carissa grandiflora.... IV

302

Chive VII

148-161

Carnation. X
Carnation Flower

119-125

Chlorophyll Granules. VII
Choke Cherry IV

29-36
96

Poppy X
Carrel, Dr. Alexis III

153
145, 146, 147.
148

Chromosomes V
Cion Ill

231
160

v

20 21

Chrysanthemum la-

74

custre II

10

Carrion Lily I

80-83

Chrysanthemum maxi-

Carrot VII

69

mum II

10, 12

Carum VII

262

Chrysanthemum n 1 p-

Carum gairdnerl VII

264

14

Casaba XI
Casaba Melon VII
(,'asimirva edulis IV
Castanopsls c h r y-
sophylls XI
Castilleia X

264
47
302

122
196

Citranges IV
Citrus Fruits IV
Citrus Japonica IV
Citrus trifoliata IV
Cleft Graft Ill

276
273-304
275
276
172

Castle, Prof. Wm. E. II

65, 72, 123,

218

IV
Clematis X

270,
218-226

III

242, 256

Clematis coccinea X

219

Catallna Cherry IV

99

Climax Plum V

223

[297]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.
.. V

Pajre.
126-132

VI

150

I

46-48

VIII

78-89, 92-103

Tol.

Clues To Be Followed III 13
Coast Tree Lupine.... IX 1
Coates, Leonard
Cocoanut

Cousin Marriages XII §9*242

Cover-Crop IV 48

Cowslip X 62 64

Cranberry VI 100

Crawford Peach IV

I

XI

107
94-96
13, 14

Crimson
nla Poples
Cl

Calif or-

IX

Codling Motn IV 50

Coe Chestnut XI 108

126
120

Collectors *« 120-123

Colorado Yew Cypress XI 288
Colors

Coffee

Colby, G. E..

Cold Frames.

Crimson Olarkia..
Crimson Rambler.
Crinum

Crlnum amabale

Crlnum Amerlcanum.

VII 169

IX 121
IX 158

IX 53, 55, C8, 60
IX 81, 97
X 141-148

145

97

145

X

IX
X

29-84
271-275

155-165,287

Crlnum Anabilis IX

Crinum Asiatica..

Crinum longiflora.

97

IX 97

X

I

145

Color of Foliage a

13
236

V 199, 211

o

Columbine ........... _f. 49-57

Colvllle, Mr ..... ..... IX 172

Combination of Qual-
ities ..............

Combination Plum ----

Commercial Value of
Nuts ..............

Compositae ..........

Composite Flowers....
Compound Flowers ----

.

Cross-Pollenizing
Crozy Canna ......... IX

Cruclfers ............

Crude Oil ........ •• %;

"Crystal White"
blackberry ........

VII 60-69
XI 257

VI

XI
III
VII

17-24

40, 45, 48,

59,68

68

42

285

Conchlflor X

r^r^/t.ra , m

Conifers

Conquest
less Prune. .

179

135, 167-197
III 96

V" ffi. 167-197
96

135, 167-197

120

172-175, 282-
292

X

III
VII
X

Cucumber VH

Cultivation _*

Cup Fungi VIII 48

Currant _X* 7°*' Airo

Currant Tomato VII 114

Cut Worm VIII 122

Cuthbert Raspberry... VI 62,148

Cuvier I" §82 , 283

Cydonlan Apple IT 213

Cydonia japonica IV 224,232

Cydonia maulei..

XI

Stone-

Cydonia sinensis . .
Cydonla vulgaris
Cynoglossum
Cypress

IV 224, 232, 234,

236
IV 206. 224
IV 206, 213
IX 160

V 132-137. 157

VIII 72, 73,

VIII 124, 126
IX

TpvAFFODIL ^

Dahl, Dr. Andreas IX

Coreopsis •••••

Coreopsis llnceolita.
Corinth Currants vi

S~*svwn . . • • • A

X 60
VI

Corn

Corn Cockle X

III 292, 293, 295

vni TJ«

107

Dahlia Juarezil IX

Dahlia variabilis IX

Daisy *

II

130-132
190
204
203-233

146-162, 182-

189

7-38, 69, 97

"Damping Off" ....... HI

Dandelion ...........

III 228-233
IX 135-165

Correns ™I g.

Corsican Pine XI 257

Cortaderia argentea. .Vni 294

Corylus rostrata J i4»

Cos Lettuce Til

Darnel • • • •

Darwin, Charles.

Cosmos

X 178-180

Cotton ' '.'.VIII 108-182
SttoJ Boil-Worm.... VIII 122
Coulter. Professor II 33,

55, 62, 70, 72,
84, 88, 90, 94
202, 206
40, 44, 46
168

XI 155, 161, 202.

205, 207
XII 23, 32, 53, 167

III

V

IX

[298]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Tol.

Page.

VoL

Page.

Darwin, Charles XII

174, 176, 206

Edible Bulbs X

88

Darwin. Erasmus IX

168

Euison I

66

Darwin Potato II

283

VII

110

VII

297-302

Educating the Seed-

Date Palm X

200-205

ling XII

223

Davenport, Prof Ill

256

Eel Grass Ill

205

Day, H., & Son II

174

Eggplant VII

223

292-301

Elaeagnus VI

246

Delaware Plum V

36, 70

Elaeagnus argentea... VI

248

Delphinium California X
Delphinium cardinale. X

170

168

Elaeagnus augustifolia VI
Elaeagnus canadensis. VI

248

248

Delphinium decorum.. X

168

Elaeagnus longipes... VI

246, 248

Delphinium hespirium X
Delphinium hybrldum. X

170
168

Elaeagnus pungens VI
Elaeagnus umbellata.. VI

248
248

Delphinium nudicaule. X

168

Elder VI

175

"Determiner" II
Devil's Claw I

67, 68

100-105

Elderberry VI
Elegance Verbena.... X

172-180

108

Devil's Shoe String. . . X

263-267

Elm XI

301-304

de Vries, Prof. Hugo. II

55, 88, 90. 91.

Emerson V

39

94-98

VI

285

IV

284

Emperor of Japan.... II

170

V

139

Empress of India Rose IX

55, 58

VIII

56

Empson, J. H VII

74

IX

90

Empson Peas VII

73-83

X

68, 70

Endothia parasitica. . . XI

112

XI

198

Engelmanni X

216

XII

153, 194, 200,

English Pond Seedling

247, 286

Prune

248

Dewberry II

286-289
11-38, 52

Entomophilous Ill
Epau Potato VII

60

262-265

VI

54, 60-62

Epiphyllum VIII

172

119-125

XII

51

Dianthus Chinensis... X

120

Epistatic IX

129

Dictator Raspberry... VI

48

Epoch. Plum V

214

Digitalis Ill

216

Erdody IX

13

Dixie Lippia X

240

Ericaceae VI

264

Dodecatheon X

62, 64

Eriobotyra IV

264

"Dog Corn" VIII

11

Eschscholtzia Ill

290

Dog and Monkeys

170-172

IX
X

121
151

Dooryard Flowers X

107-134

Essential Oils IX

245

Dorchester Blackberry VI

25

Eucalyptus XI

168

Doris Plum V

222

Euchleana Mexlcana. .VIII

10

Doubling Petals IX

34-39

Eureka Raspberry.... VI

47, 48

Douelas Spruce XI

288

Euridineial Fungi VIII

48

Drainage X

245-252

Evening Primrose. ... II

90, 91, 95

t

Drake's Seedling Al-

96, 98

91

VII

127

Drooping Nightshade. IX
Duarte Plum V

267
36

X

Evergreen Blackberry. VI

68-72
153

Dutton, Warren XII

88

Evergreen Golden

Chestnut XI

122

EARLY Amber Grape VI
"Early Black"

206

Everlasting Flower. . . X
Extra-early Sweet

135-141

Grape VI

206

Corn VIII

27, 29

Early Goodrich Potato VII

290

Extreme Variation X

7-38

Early Harvest Black-

Eyde, S Till

105

berry VI

27

Early Minnesota Sweet
Corn VIII

30

FAILURES II
Fairchild, David G. VI

271-304
11

Early Purple Guigne
Cherry II

211

VIII
Fameuse Apple IV

187, 192
191, 192,

194

Early Rose Potato. . . VII

278, 290, 292

Famine Preventer. .. .VIII

246, 248

Early Years in Santa

Feijoa IV

302

Rosa XII

61-105

Feijoa Sellowiana IV

302

East, Prof. E. M IV

276

Fennel Flower of

East Plum V

211

France I

88

Easter Beurre Pear. . . IV

118

III

72, 78

Ectatomma tubercu-

Fernn Ill

61, 64. 66

latum VIII

124

98

[299]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Page.

Vol.

Page.

Ferraria

X

77

Geranium I

67-80

Fertilizers

IV

49

III

214

X

280, 288, 289

X

128-134

Field Gardens

X

279-304

Germ Plasm and Body

Fig

IV

297

Plasm X

99, 101

Fig Guava

IV

302

Giant Amaryllis IX

94

Filberts

XI

146-150

Giant Calla IX

250, 254,

256

Final Selection

III

275-304

Giant Maritima Plum. V

206, 210

Finsen, Dr

II

52

Giant Prune II

249

Fire Blight

TV

128

V

100, 102,

11?

First Plum

V

204

Giants, Breeding IX

72-77

Five-Leafed Ivy

X

215

Gilia IX

160

Fixing Good Traits...

TTT

221-247

X

191

Fixing a Type

III

233-247

Gladiolus IX

167-202

Flame Tokay Grape. .

VI

195

Gladiolus blandus... IX

172-174

Flat-fish

IT

92

Gladiolus cardinalis. IX

172

"Flats"

TTI

122

Gladiolus cristis IX

172

Flax

VIII

107

Gladiolus oppositiflorus IX

174

Floral Envelope

IX

289

Gladiolus psittacinus IX

172

Floral Firecracker. . . .

VII

258

Gladiolus ramosus. . . IX

174

Flower Gardens

X

279-304

Gladstone Raspberry. VI

43

Flower Possibilities..

IX

7-40

Glucose VIII

153

Flowering Peach

IV

162

Glumes VIII

60-65

Flowering Raspberry..
Food Value of Nuts..

VI
XI

258
10-13

Goethe VII
IX

139
168

Foreign Collectors ....

XII

120-123

Gold Ridge Farm XII

107

V

74, 223, 252

Golden Plum V

70

Four-O'clocks

X

46-49

Golden Rod I

26

Foxglove

III

216

72-76

Fragaria ananassa....

VI

86

Golden Russet Apple. IV

191, 192,

194

Fragaria Californica. .

VI

92

139

Fragaria Chiloensis. . .

VI

84

Goodrich Potato VII

290

Fragaria grandiflora . .

VT

86

Gooseberry VI

160

Fragaria Indica

VI

90

Gophers IX

183-186

Fragrance

IX

23-29

Gould, Mrs X

126

Fragrance Calla

II

80

Gouml Berry VI

246, 247,

248

IX

248

Grafting I

198-203

Fragrant Verbena

X

107-116

II

148-152,

208

Francheschi, Dr

X

236

III

145-195

Kranquette Walnut...

XT

37, 58

IV

270

Fraud Plum

V

190

Grafting Wax Ill

180

Freestone

V

126-132

Grains VIII

45-76

Freezing

V

20, 21

Grapes Ill

286

French Globe Arti-

VI

181-211

choke

VII

182

Grasses VIII

278-299

French Legend about

Gravenstein Apple .... IV

138, 191,

194,

Apples

I

194

202, 203

French Marigold

X

174

62

French Prune

TT

112

Gregg Raspberry VI

48, 50

French Robe de Ser-

Gregory, J. J. H VII

53, 281, 2

82,

geant Prune

V

118

284

Fresno Cactus
Fruiting

VIII
V

209

180

Greyhound Story IV
Groff, H. H IX

90
184

Fungus

7III

48

Ground Cherry VII

225-228

XT

110-115

Guatemala Ant VIII

124

G ALTON, Sir Fran-
cis

TTT

17, 18

Guinea Pig Experiment 1
Gumbo VIII

65, 123
242
110

Gandavensis Glad-

Gummosis IV

100

iolus

IX

174

Gum Trees XI

239-269

Garber Pear

IV

118

Gymnocarpa Cactus. .VIII

189

Garden Huckleberry..

VT

114, 115

Gardening
Garden Plants

VII
VII

7-38
39

HAAS Queen Apple IV
Habit II

192
182

Gardens, Flower and

Hairy Plum VI

251

Field

X

279-304

Hale Chestnut XI

108

Garden Royal

IV

191, 192, 194

Hale Plum V

70

Garlic

VTT

152, 154

Hales, Stephen IV

282, 287

General Jacqueminot

Halsted, Prof. Byron

Rose

IX

63

D VII

223

[300]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Tol.
Hand Pollenizlng Ill

91-9?

Vol.
Hypostatlc IX

Page.
129

Hanse, Timothy VIII

78

Hansell Raspberry VI

148

ICE-PLANT I

48

Hansen, Prof. N. E... IV

100

124

V

215

Idaho Brome-Grass VIII

283

Hanson, Timothy Till

78

Ideal Plum, An V

170-196

Hatch, A. T XI

90

Ideal Prune Qualifica-

Hawthorn VI

266

tions II

245

Hay VIII

77-80

Improved Dwarf Rocky

Hazelnut XI

30, 146-150

Mountain Cherry IV

101

Heath VI

264

Improved French

Hedges X

278

Prune V

107, 109

Helianthus VII

187

Improved S t r a 1 n of

Heliothis armiger VIII

122

Shirley Poppy IX

114

Helipterum X

138

178

Hemp VIII

108, 301-304

Inbreeding Ill

224

Henbane VI

112

Indian Fig Cactus.. VIII

190

Herbert, Rev. Dr. Wm. IX

167, 172

"Indian-Shot Plant" IX

241

X

147

Indian's Paint-Brush X

196

XII

174

Inedible Fruits VI

237-268

Herbertia platensis... X

80

Inoculation of Soil.. VIII

102

Herd, John VIII

78

Interesting Aliens . . X

135-166

Herd's Grass VIII

78

Ipomoea X

181

Hermosa Rose IX

45

Ipomoea setosa X

183

Hermosillo Plum V

36

Iris Ill

217

67

X

40-46, 77

III

241, 245

Iris foetssissima X

42

IV

76

Iris laevigata X

40

Heuchera cristata.... IX

7-23

Irrigation X

252-256

Heuchera micrantha.. IX

7

Isabella Regia Grape.. VI

202, 204, 208

Hevea XI

251

Ixia X

148-150

Hickory-Nut XI

131-140,

156-161

JACKMANNI lanugl-

Hlcoria glabra XI

134

nosa X

219

Himalaya Blackberry. VI

27-38

Jacobean Lily IX

95

Hind, Robert VIII

221

Japanese Apricot IV

260

Hippeastrum IX

80, 94

Japanese Golden May-

Hippeastrum aulicum. IX

84, 86

berrv TI

144

Hippeastrum Johnson! IX

81, 84, 86

Japanese Ivy X

215

Hippeastrum reglnae. IX

81, 86

Japanese Plum XI

63-72

Hippeastrum vittatum IX

81. 84, 86

Japanese Rose IX

63

Holmes, Robert II

170

Japanese Variegated

Homozygote II

67, 160

Corn VIII

20

III

241, 242, 244,

Japanese Walnut XI

41

245

Jerusalem Artichoke.. VII

187

IV

76

Jewel Weed Ill

72

Honey Prune V

107

Johannsen, Prof. W. L. II

266-268

Hops VIII

154-163

Johnson's Amaryllis.. IX

81

Horse Chestnut XI

263

Juarez, President IX

209

Horseradish VII

170

Juglans cordrlformis. XI

43

Hovey's Seedling

Juglans Manschurlca.. XI

65

Strawberry VI

86

Juglans Sieboldii XI

41

Howard, Dr. L. 0.. VIII

121

Jumping Bean Tree... I

98

Hubbard, Squash.. . VII

53

Hubbardston Apple IV
Huckleberry VI

192
114, 115, 166

KAFFIR Corn Till
Kapok X

14
194

"Huckleberry Plum' V

208

Keen's Seedling

Hulot Gladiolus... IX

198

Strawberry VI

86

Human Maladies... XII

242-246

Keeping Seeds Over

Human Plant XII

203-246

Winter . Ill

116

Hungarian Prune.. . II

248

Kelep VIII

124

Hunt, Prof. Thos. F..VIII

100, 112
113

Kelsey Plum Ill

158

Husbands, Seuor
Jose D XII
Husk Tomato VII

123
225

Kelvin, Lord V
Kieffer, Peter IV

240
116

Hybiscus VIII
Hybridizing, Limits of III
Hyoscyanius niger VI

110
36
112
242

Kimkan IV
King of Italy II
Kinkit IV

Kittatiny Blackberry. VI

275
170
275
25

[301]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Page.

Vol.

Page.

Knight, Andrew

, TY

114

Lupine

. IX

15$

XTT

174

Lupulin

.VIII

156-163

Kohl-rabi ..

VTT

63

Lye

. V

92

Kolreuter

II

44

. IT

192

XTT

176

Kumquat ,

, IV

275

MACADAMIA te
nifolia

r-
. IV

302

LABELS

, TTT

261-272

XI

152

Label Stakes

TTT

261-272

MacDougal, Dr. D. T

. VII

127

Lamarck

IX

168

Madder ,

. XI

249-251

Lancaster

XTT

20

Madia elegans

. Ill

32

Languedoc Almond . . .

XI

76

Madia sativa

. Ill

32

Lapageria

X

230

XI

249

Larkspur

X

167-173

Madrona

. VI

265

Latex

XT

252-255

Magnolia ,

. XI

298

Lawn Beautiflcatlon..

X

235-278

Mahonia

. VI

244

Lawton Blackberry . . .

II

42-48, 69, 62

Mala Cydonia

IV

213

III

25

Malta Cactus

.Till

189

VT

25, 65, 66, 154

Malthus ,

, XI

205

Leader Peach

IV

167

Mao-li-dzl

. VT

251

Leaf

VTT

29

Maple

XI

178, 239-24<1

Le Conte Pear

IV

118, 123

, XI

240

Leeks

VII

152

Marchioness of Bute..

IX

206

Leguminous Plants. . .

VIII

98

Marigold

. X

174-178

Le Long, M. B

II

252

Maritima Plum

. V

208

Lemon, Prof

X

174

Marketable Nuts

XI

13-17

Lemonball Marigold . .

X

176

Marrow

. VII

53

Lemon Giant Calla...

IX

250

Martin Story

. TT

86, 87, 186

Leopard Lily

IX

259

Martynia

I

100-105

Leotsakos, Prof

VI

224, 226

Mayberry

. VI

144

Lettuce

I

48

Mayflower Verbena..

. X

107-116

VTT

190-196

Maynard Plum ,

. V

223, 248

Lichens

Ligusticum Canadense

III
VII

61, 64
157

Mavpop
McParland Chestnut..

VII
XI

231-237
108

Lilies

IX

235-268

Melissa

VII

163

IX

71

"Melocotoon"

. IV

152

TX

263

Melon

VII

42-60

X

88

Mendel

, II

55, 58, 59,61,

Lilium Humboldtil . . .

IX

260

62, 65, 67, 69,

Lilium pardalinum. , .

VII

262

70, 72, 122,

IX

259, 262, 285

159, 218, 222,

Lilium parry!

IX

260, 262

226, 233

Lilium parvum

TX

260

III

25, 241

Lilium Washingto-

V

298

nlanum

IX

262

VI

46, 130, 132,

Lily, Chinese Carrion.

T

80-83

133

Lily of Incas

TX

265

VTT

86-96, 99-100.

Lima Bean

VII

102

106, 108, 117

Limnanthus douglasii.

IX

158

VIII

36. 56-72, 87,

Limits of Hybridizing

TTT

36

129, 182, 260

Linden

XT

178

IX

127, 130, 299

Line Breeding

III

242, 247

X

52, 54, 166

Linnaeus

VI

150

XI

80, 195-203,

IX

204

218-237

Llppia canescens

X

235

XII

192-201. 223,

Liriodendron

X

XT

117, 235

294-298

Mosnmbryanthemum . .

X

242-246, 259
237

Live Stock Food

VIII

77-106

Methyl Alcohol

VIII

248

Lock. R. H

VTTT

36

Methyl Aldehyde

VTTT

154

Loeb, Prof. Jacqnos.,

TTT

210, 212

Mexican Cotton Boll

Logan, Judge J. H. ..

VT

64

Weevil

VIII

122

Loganberry
Lollum

VI

X

64
263

Meyer, Frank N
Mice

XI
IX

112
127-130

Longrrorth. Nicholas..

VT

42

Microcosm

V

239

Longworth's Prolific

Micromeria douglassi.

VII

161

Strawberry

VT

96

Mikado, The

VIII

271, 272

Loqnat

TV

2R4-271

Mildew

IX

63

Lovasre

VTT

157

Milkweed

I

86

Lovt --. T. J

TT

39. 40

III

205

Lombt..-

XI

155-192

X

193, IS*

[302]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

ToL
Milkweed XI

Page.
252

Tol.
New Plums V

Page.
197-246

Miller Prune V

107, 109

197-246

Mint . HI

34, 39

Newton. Prof Ill

10

VII

158

Newtown Pippin Apple IV

192, 194

X

64

Nicotlana Wlgandio-

Miracle Plum T

156

ides rubra II

275-280

Mixed Ancestry Ill

224

Nicotunia I

240

Mixture of Races.... XII

226-229

Nightshade Family... VI

110

Mojave Llppla X

241

Nitrogen VIII

96-106

Moliere XI

167

X

289, 291

Momentum of Varia-

Nixie Plum V

216

tion Ill

108

Nobel VII

111

Monarch Strawberry.. VI
Monkey Puzzle Tree. I
Monteclto Grape VI

96
29, 31
206

Nonpareil Almond.... XI
Non-Union Plants III
Nopalia Cactus VIII

90
61
193, 198

Moon-Flower X

181, 183

Northern Spy Apple... IV

194, 198, 200

Morada Cactus VIII

189

Norway Pine XI

257

Morgan, Prof. T. H.. VII

127

Nut Growing XI

7-33

Morganhlll Prune V

107. 109

Nuttall, Dr. G. H. F. Ill

48, 60, 147

Morning-Glory X

181-185, 263-

Morris. Dr. Robert T. XI
Morton Orange IT
Mosaic of Characters. Ill
Mosses Ill
Moth III

267
113
276
22
61, 64
198

OAK XI
Oats VIII
Oenothera X
Oenothera acaulis X
Old World Thistle VII

175
45, 46

68-72
70
202

IV

50

Onions VII

162-155

Mountain Ash VI
Mucilage VIII
Muir Peach IV

266
251
154, 158, 164.
167

Opium Poppy X
Opulent Peach IV
Opuntia VIII

Opuntia vulgaris VIII

151-166
156, 158
172-269
178, 179

XI

76

Orange IV

275-292

Mulberry IV

297
172-180

V
Orange Quince IV

162
212, 213. 214.

Munson Mr VI

202

216, 223

Muscat 'Grape VI
Muskmelon VII

202
44

Orange Sugar-Cane. . .VIII
Orange Sweet Corn... VIII

150
40

Mustang Grape VI

200

Orchard Fruits IV

7-35

Mustard VII

164

Orchard Grass VIII

291

Mutation II

80. 84, 88, 90-

Orchard Plans and

„

98, 120

Methods IV

87-67

Myrica cerifera XI

266

V

168

Myrlca nagl XI

268

Orchard Surgery IV

128

Myrlca rubra XI

268

160

Myrobolan Plum V

116, 174, 220

V

168

Myrtles VI

254-258

XI

115-122

Myrtus communls VI

255

Orchid

83

Myrtus ugni VI

256

Ill

206

Orchid-Flowered Canna IX

239

NARCISSUS I
Nasturtium X
Nasturtium Chi-
lensi VII
Natal Plum IV
National Peach IV
Navel Orange IV
Ne Plus Ultra Almond XI

130-132
185-188

169
302
167
279
90

Orchis mascula Ill
Orchis pyramidalis... Ill

Oriental Poppies X
Ornamentals X
Ornamental Trees XI
Orthogenesis Ill

208
207
244
151-168
199-233
271-304
108

Nectarine Ill

120

Oryza VIII

275

IV

141-175

Osmosis IV

284, 287

XI

72-88

VII

17. 18

Need for Improving

Ostrich Plume Clematis X

222

Small Fruits VI

269-304

Otbello Plum V

222

Nemophila IX

157

Out of Door Planting. Ill

118

Nettle I

88

Oval Brittany

III

72

Artichoke VII

182

New Creations In

Ovary Ill

87

Fruits and Flowers XII

136, 137, 153,

Ovster Plant VII

71

155

Ox-Eye Daisy II

8, 10, 12, 17,

New Giant Crimson

20, 26

Ebubarb VII 210

[303]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol,

Page.

Vol.

Page.

PAEONIA Poppy...
Painted Cup

X
X

153
194

Pierce Grape VI
Pig-Nuts XI

202. 204
134

Palm

III

221

Pineapple Quince IV

211, 221, 222,

X

199-214, 277

223. 224

Palmer Apple

IV

192

Pine Strawberry VI

86

Pampas-Grass '

VIII

145, 294-299

Pine Trees I

98-103

Pansy

1

114-116

III

120

Papaver Calif ornica ..

IX

123

XI

175

Papaver orientalis

X

151

Pink X

119-125

Papaver Rhoeas

TX

107

Pipewort I

32

Papaver somnifera. . . .

X

HTT

151
252, 303, 304

Pipette Rose IX
Pistachio XI

63
152

Paper-Shell Walnut...

XT

35-41

Pistil Ill

85, 87

Paradox Raspberry...

VT

68, 70, 72

Pitcher Plants I

50

Paradox Walnut

TT

137, 140, 143,

Planning a New Plant III

7-29

146, 154, 156,

Plans of The Society XII

247-288

159, 299

Plant Affinities Ill

31-55

XT

41-44, 46-51,

Plant Antagonisms... Ill

43

164, 167, 193

Plant Cells VII

22

Paris Artichoke

VTT

184

Plant's Food Factory VII

25-31

Paris Daisy

IX

152

Plant Intelligence III

204

Parsley

VII

155

Plants That Tend to

VTT

69

Vary X

17

Passiflora

VTT

231

Plateau Ill

213

Passiflora ceurules. . . .

VIT

232

Platycodon X

7

Passiflora. edulus

VTT

232

Pliny I

198

Passion Flower

VII

228-237

Plum I

275-278

Pattyan Squash

VII

53

III

158

Pea

1

263

IV

256

TT

100

V

7-304

III

72

XI

63

VTT

73-97

Plum Orchard V

168

Peach

TIT

120

Plum, Stoneless II

103-136

TV

15, 16, 18,

III

110

141-175

Plumcot I

247-252

XT

72-88

IV

18, 256

Peach Blow Rose

IX

63

V

275-304

T

119-125

"Plums of New York,

ITI

120

The" V

30, 106

IV

14, 23, 25, 26,

Pocket-Gophers IX

183-186

105-140

Pole-Bean VII

07

Pear Blight

IV

126

67-80

V

102, 103, 106

II

202

Pecan

XI

24-30, 138-146

III

67-98

III

214

Till

22, 24, 184,

X

128-134

296

Pelller, Louis

TT

242

IX

80, 200, 230,

Pentstemon barbatus.

TX

158

239, 256, 257

Pepper, W. H

XTT

67

X

131

VTT

169

XI

52

Peppers

VTT

174-177

Pomato II

283

Perfection Plum

V

70

Pond's Seedling Prune V

100

Perkins

VIT

111

Poppy I

289-298

Perpetual Artichoke. .

VTT

184

HI

290

Persian Rose

TX

65

IX

103-133

TT

137, 138, 150

X

151-166

XT

35-54, 162

Portugal Quince IV

212-216, 220,

Persimmon

IV

294

221

Petunia

TT

275-280

Potato I

56-65

X

125-128

II

280-284

Phenomenal Berry....

IT

97

VII

114, 129-144,

VT

60

267-304

Philadelphia Raspberry

VT

43

XII

76

Phllesia buxifolia

X

232

Power of Environment XII

219-223

Philegeria Veltchll . . .

X

232

Prickly Pear VI

213-236

Phoenix

X

206

Pride of Congo Calla IX

250

Phoenix canariensis. . .

X

209

Pride Plum V

212

Physalis

VII

225

Primrose II

90,91, 95,86,

Physalie alkekengl. . .
Pierce. J. P

VII
TI

225
204

VII

98
127

[304]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Tol.

Page.
68-72

II

97

VI

y

60-59
36

Prize-Taker Spanish
Onion

VII

154

Profusion Amaryllis..
Pronuba yuccasella. . .

IX

III

VII

92
198
34

II

112

V
XII
II

79-273
86-93
242

V

98, 100, 103,
107. 112, 115,
126

Pruning IV

Prunus Americana V

Prunus angustifolia. . V

Prunus Besseyi IV

Prunus cerasifera IV

Prunus dasycarpa IV

Prunus domestica. .. . V

Prunus hortulans V

Prunus Maritima V

Prunus mume IV

Prunus Pennsylvania. IV

Prunus pissardi V

Prunus serotlna IV

Prunua simonii V

Prunus subcordata V

Prunus tomentosa .... V

Prunus triflora V

Prunus Vlrginlana.... IT

Puccinia graminis VIII

Pumpkin VII

Punnett, Prof II

Purple-Cane Raspberry VI

Pyms cathayensis. . . . IV

QUADRI-COLORED
Corn VIII
Quantity Produc-
tion Ill

Quercus densiflorus . . . XI
Quick-Growing Walnut XI

Quince Ill

IV

RADISH ., .. Til
Radium VII

Rae's Mammoth

Quince IV

Rainbow Corn VIII

Ramblers IX

Rambo Apple IV

Ram Story II

Ranunculus VII

Raspberry II

VI

Reana luxurians VIII

Recording Experiments III

Red Snow Plant I

Redwood XI

Reliance Raspberry... TI
Religious Environment

of Burbank XII

Resin XI

203

203

100, 101

203, 212

261

220

261

58, 98, 218

203

203

260

97

222, 300

97

54, 220, 223

203

220

54, 220. 223

96

48

52

100

43

226

19

99-143

124

193-237

120

206, 211-240

127

212, 220, 221

19-27

55-60

192

88

264

290-295

39-72

10

249-273

28

173, 274-280

42

29
268

Tol. Page.

Rex Begonia IX 18

Rhode Island Greening

Apple IV 192

Rhodes, Cecil Till 278

Rhubarb II 169-199

VII 209-222

Ribes dlvaricatum VI 162

Ribes menzieszi VI 162

Ribes rubrum VI 156

Ribes sanguineum VI 157. 158

Rice VIII 271-278

Richardia albo-macul-

ata IX 248

Richardia Elliottiana. IX 251

Richardia hastata IX 25O

Richardia melanoleuca IX 251

Richardia Nelsonll.... IX 251

Richardia Pentlandl.. IX 251

Richardia Rehmannl.. IX 251

Robinson Plum V 70

Rodanthes X 138

Roeding, Geo. C IV 294

V 292

ROntgen VII 111

Roots, Care of IT 48

Rosa Chlnensis IX 63

Rosa gymnocarpa IX 63

Rosa rugosa IX 63

Rose IX 41-69

Ross, Olive XII 14

Rotation of Crops X 291-304

Rotundiflora X 69

Roxbury Russet Apple IV 192

Royal Apricot IV 262

Royal Walnut II 137-168

XI 46-51, 167.
193

Rubber XI 251-266

Rubio Plum V 36

Rubus Ill 35

VI 237

Rubus bitifolius VI 52

Rubus Canadensls . . . . VI 11

Rubus capensis VI 139

Rubus chamemorus . . . VI 150

Rubus crataegifolius.. VI 52

Rubus deliciosis VI 258, 262

Rubus Idaeus VI 39

Rubus lacinietus VI 153

Rubus leucodermis VI 42, 58, 136,

138

Rubus nigrobaccus. ... VI 26

Rubus neglectus VI 40

Rubus nutkanus VI 258, 260

Rubus occidentalis ... VI 42

Rubus odoratus VI 258

Rubus palmatus VI 146

Rubus rosaeflorus. ... VI 262

Rubus saplvus VI 26

Rubus spectabilis. ... VI 142

Rubus strigosus VI 42, 43, 68

Rubus thoenicolasius. . VI 262

Rue Ill 72, 78

Ruffled Giant Petunia. X 126

Rusk Orange IV 276

Rust VIII 47-76

Rutherford, Prof V 235, 239

Rutland. John M V 292

VI 206

VIII 209

[305]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Page.

Vol.

Page.

Rutland Plumcot V

292, 294

Shasta Daisy Ill

228-133

Rye VIII

45, 46

IX

135-152

Shellbark Hickory. .. XI

131-140, 167-

SAGE Ill

205

161

Salinas Burbank

Shell Flower X

80

Potato VII

286

Shepherdia argentea.. VI

248

Salmon Berry VI

142

Shepherdia canadensis VI

248

Salpiglosis X

125

Sheppard, Mrs X

126

Salsify VII

71

Sherwood Poppy (Miss) X

158, 166

Salvla X

64, 66

Shirley Poppy IX

107-133

Salvia ramona X

64

Shiro Plum V

222

Salvla sonomensis X

64

Shooting Star X

62, 64

Sambucus Canadensis. VI

175

Shrubs X

277

Sambucus glauca VI

175, 179

Siberian Raspberry... VI

52, 54

Sambucus nigra VI

176

Side-Grafting Ill

170

Sambucus racemosa... VI

175

Silver Lining Poppy.. IX

123

Sand Cherry IV

100

223

Sandwich Island Mam-

Single- Husked Corn . . . VIII

13

moth Ovster Plant. VII

72

253

San Jose Scale IV

60

Slugs Ill

120, 141

Sans Noyau Plum.... II

108, 110, 113,

Smith Cactus VIII

187

118, 120

Smith, Emery E VIII

187

Santa Claus Melon.. . VII

45

Smith Pear IV

118

Santa Rosa XII

61-105

Snow Drift Clematis.. X

222

Santa Rosa Cactus. . .VIII

209, 242

Snake Cucumber VII

44

Santa Rosa Plum T

36, 74, 82,

Snap-Dragon Flower. . Ill

214

223, 254

Snowball I

111

Santa Rosa Rose IX

45

Snyder Blackberry.... VI

25

Santa Rosa Soft Shell

Soft-Shell Walnuts... XI

36

Walnut XI

37-41

Soil X

280-291

Santa Rosa Strain of

Soil for Raising Seed-

Shirley Poppy IX

116

lings Ill

124

Sap-Hybridism Ill

158

Bolauaceae VI

110

VII

139

Kolanuins VI

110-133

Sap Tapping XI

242

VII

174, 223

266

Solanum Commersoni. II

281

Satsuma Plum V

14, 29, 32, 36,

VII

302

38, 294

Solanum guinense VI

112, 116, 118,

Scab IV

50

119

Scented Calla II

73-101

Solanum Jamesil II

280

IX

245-248

Solanum maglia II

283

Scllla VII

251

VII

297

Scotch Fir XI

257

Polamim nigrum VI

115, 116, 118

Scuppernong Grapes.. VI

200

Solanum villosum VI

114, 116, 119,

Sea Island Cotton. . . .VIII

112, 116

122

Sea Pine XI

257

Bonoches VII

202

Sebastopol XII

107

209

Seckel Pear Ill

235

Sorghum VIII

145-154

IT

116, 136

Souhegan Raspberry.. VI

50

Seedlings and Their

Sow Thistle VII

202

Care Ill

99-143

Spanish Broom Ill

217

Seed Preservation. ... II

128

Spartium junceum III

217

Seeds Ill

116

Specific Needs IV

7-35

IV

194

Spencer, Herbert II

32

IX

242, 283

Spineless Cactus I

7-26

Selection, Principle of XII

207-212, 246

VIII

169-208

Self-Fertilized Plants. Ill

72-78

Splendor Plum II

249

Senses of Insects Ill

207

Splendor Prune V

112, 136

Sensitive Plant I

43-46

"Sports" II

88-94, 120

Sequoia XI

173, 271-280

IV

146, 152

Sequoia sempervlrens. XI

277

VIII

17. 86

Sequoia glgantia XI

277

60

Seralian. M. K VI

195

Sprekelia IX

81, 94, 95

Shaffer's Colossal

Spruce XI

288-292

Shaffer Raspberry.... VI
Shagbark Hickory XI

47, 48, 60, 68
42
131-140, 156-

Squash VII
Squills VII

260
52-60
280
249

161

7-38, 59, 87

Squirting Cucumber. . I
Stamens Ill

97
83, 88

[306]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Tol.

Page.

Vol.

Page.

Standards of Civiliza-
tion

XII

212-216

Thompson's Seedless
Grapes VI

195

Standard Prune

T

116, 121-126,
136

Thompson, Sir J. J... V
Thornless Blackberry. VI

240

7-38

Stanley
Starch

VI
II
VIII

139
256
32-40

Thrip Ill
Thyme VII
Tiger Flowers X

120, 141
164
77-105

Starflower
Stark Bros

X

V

136
112

Tigridias X
Tigridia buccifera X

77-105
80

Stigma
Stock

III
III

87
150

Tigridia pavonia X
Timber Trees XI

80
155-192

Stone
Stoneless Peach
Stoneless Plums
Stooeless Prunes

v

IT
V
II
V

145
168
139-165
112
132-165

Timothy VIII
Tobacco II
Tokay Grape VI

VII

77, 78
275-280
195
229-235
109-144

Stowell's Evergreen
Corn
Strawberry

VIII
II

VI

40
290-295
73-104, 271

Tongue Graft Ill
Top Grafting Ill
Tradegy Prune V
Trailing Myrtle X

176
176
122, 268
237

Strawberry Tomato. . .
Strawberry Tree
Stubble Berry
Suckering

VII
VI
VI
VIII

, II

225
264-266
115
22. 24
255

Transplanting Ill
Trees X

Tii-Colored Carnation X
Trillium I

134-138
275, 277
7-304
119-123
31

v

86, 88, 92. 93

IX

267

VIII

32 - 40, 142,

267

145-154, 163-

Triumph Plumcot.... T

299

167

185

XI

239-246

Tropaeolum minus.... X

186

Sugar-Beet
Sugar Bush
Sugar-Cane
Sugar Grape
Sugar Maple ,
Sugar Prune

VIII
XI
VIII
. VI
XI

. II
v

142, 163-167
239-246
133-154
200
240
235-269
115-121, 136

Tropaeolum puberosum X
Tschermak VIII
Tulip Tree XI
Tunas VIII
Tunicate Corn VIII
Turkestan Alfalfa VIII
Turner, Dr. Charles A. Ill

185
56
178, 294-298
178, 190
16, 17
90
212

Sugar Raspberry
Sugar Trees
Sultan Plum

VI
XI

v

50
239-269
36

Turnip VII
Turpentine XI
Typical Flower Ill

66
255-258
85

Sultana Grape
Sultanina Grape
Sunberry

VI
VI

. II

III

196
196
97
10

T TL T R A - VIOLET
U rays II
"Dnit Characters" II

50-52
54-72, 123

VI

105-133

III

25, 26

Sunflower

. VII

179

IV

74

Swaar Apple
Sweet Botan Plum . . .

. IV

v

192
70

V

VII

232, 234

88, 117

.VIII

80

Till

57, 87

Sweet Pea

I

40-43, VI

XI

227-231

Sweetwater Grape...
Sweet Vernal Grass. .

IX
. VI

.VIII

27
195, 206
289

VACCINIDM VI
Vallesneria spiralis III

166

205

"Symbiosis"

. Ill

197

Value to Science

Syrian Grapes

VI

195, 196. 198

and Agriculture. XII
Van Deman, Prof.

155

TANBARK ...
Tapuna Cactus..
Taraxacifolia

. XI
.VIII
. X

124
190, 192
70

H. E IV
V

Van Deman Quince... IV

214

26
214, 216, 218

Tarrytown Canna. . . .

. IX
. Ill

235-238
31, 32, 39

Van Mons, Jean Bap-
tiste IT

114, 122

XI

249

Vant Hoff IV

284, 287

. X

227

Variety IT

186

Teosinte

I

126-130

Vaughan, J. C IX

211, 224

VIII

10-14

X

222

Texas Prolific Almon

a xi

90

Vegetable Kingdom

Textile Plants

.Till

107-132

Classifications I

217-229

Theoprastus
Thimble Berry
Thistle

X

VI
. VII

123
258
198, 202

Teitch X
Venus Fly Trap I
Verbena X

232
60
107-119

[307]

INDEX TO VOLUMES I TO XII

Vol.

Verbena erimoides... X
Vicar of Winkfleld
Pear .............. IV

Villarsia nymphoides. Ill
Vilmorin Brothers. . ..VIII

Vinca minor .......... X

Tines ............... X

Violet .............. I

Virginia Creeper ..... X

Tltls antarctlca ...... VI

Vitis California ...... VI

Vitis candicans ....... VI

Vltlg Colgnetiae ...... VI

Vitis cordifolia ....... VI

Vitis Foexeana ....... VI

Vitis hypoglossa ...... VI

Vitis monticola ....... VI

Vitis rupestris ........ VI

Tltis Texana ......... VI

Vitis vinifera ........ VI

Vitis vulpina ......... VI

Von Gaertner, Carl

Frledrlch ......... II

XII

Vries, de, Prof. Hugo II

IV
V

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

WACHUSBTTS
Thornless Black-
berry .......... VI

Wagener Apple ....... IV

Wallace ............. XII

Walnut ............. II

XI

Washington N a r e 1
Orange ........... V

Water .............. VII

Watsonla ........... IX

Watsonia Ardernel... IX
Watsonla coccinea ____ IX

Watsonla O'Brien! ____ IX

Waverley Clematis... X
Wax Berry ........... XI

Webber. H. H ........ VIII

Weeds .............. X

Weissman ........... XII

Western Sand Cherry V
Westralla Shasta
Daisy ............. II

Page.
117

118

2O5

163

237

215-233

113-116

216

198
194
200
198

202

200

200

200

200

200

190, 194, 195

202

44

174

55, 88, 90. 01,

94-98

284

139

56

90

68, 70

198

151, 153, 394,

200, 247, 286

10

192-194

23

137-168, 298

8, 19-24, 35-

61, 162, 193-

238

162

10-22

269-304

273

278

273

222

266

121

256-271

201

203, 212

36

Vol. Page.
West's Mammoth

Quince IV 212

Wheat I 88, 89

III 26,72,74,223,

224

VIII 45-60, 68-76

Whip Graft Ill 176

White Blackberry II 39-72, 97

III 24

Whitelaria IX 158

White Animals II 49, 60

White Fruit Cactus.. VIII 189

White Sspote IV 302

Wichuriana Rose IX 63

Wlckson. Prof. E. J.. V 71

Wickson Plum V 71,74,82,248

251, 252, 254

Wild Artichoke VII 187

Wild Black Raspberry VI 42

Wild Geranium IX 7

Wild-Goose Plum V 203,204

Wild Lettuce I 48

Wild Oat V 141

VIII 299

Wild Teazel VIII 301

Wilder Medal IV 214

Wllks, Rev. W IX 107

William's Favorite

Apple IV 192

Willits Orange IV 276

Wilson Junior Black-
berry VI 27

Wine-Berry VI 262, 284

Winter Rhubarb II 169-199

VII 209-222

Wistaria X 229

Wistaria multiguga. . . X 230

Wonderberry VI 105-185

Wonder Ixla X 150

Woodward. Dr II 52

Wooly Aphis IV 198

Wormwood I 26

Wright, Alfred XI 40

Wright, Sir Almroth IV 132

\7ELLOW Bellflower

I Apple IV 192

Yellow Calla IX 253

Yerba bueua VII 161, 163

Yucca HI 197

ZANTA currants VI 196

Zea tunicata VIII 13

ZgTtama^7.a"?:VIII 20

Zizania aquatica VIII 277

Zygote II 67