ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY al VURETLL UNIVERSITY CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924080030699 Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT/ITU Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48- 1992. The production of this volume was supported by the United States Department of Education, Higher Education Act, Title II-C. Scanned as part of the A. R. Mann Library ‘project to preserve and enhance access to the Core Historical Literature of the Agricultural Sciences. Titles included in this collection are listed in the volumes published by the Cornell University Press in the series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences, 1991-1996, Wallace C. Olsen, series editor. NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE The improved amaryllis, with blossoms nearly a foot across and of great brilliancy NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE AN AUTHORITATIVE ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF LUTHER BURBANK BY Ww. Ss. HARWOOD dew Bork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Lrp. 1905 All rights reserved Copyright, 1905 By The Macmillan Company Published September, 1905 Mount Pleasant Press J. Horace McFarland Company Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Co My Wie PREFACE jl Dieses preparation of this volume has been a work of particular pleasure: First, because of the unusual interest which has: centered in the development of the material, material which takes its rise in primal places and flows in a broad stream outward; and, second, and paramount, it has been a pleasure because of the contact it has brought with the man whose life and achievements it can but inadequately portray. When the demands of his great work have been most exacting, he has never shrunk from giving still more of his strength to the illumi- nation of obscure points ; when the work has worn upon him so that it has taxed his energies to the utmost, while care sought out the strings of his nerves to play sharp discords upon them, he has never failed in patience or vii PREFACE yielded to the irritation that must have swept a lesser man off his feet. For the unfailing courtesy, for the superb thoughtfulness, for the rare gift of clarity of speech,—for all these, and far more, I am under obligation to the man about whom this book is written. If it shall be an exposition of his great work which shall bring pleasure and possibly some measure of profit to those who read, and, beyond, if it shall point the way to a still wider extension of the work of which Luther Burbank is so conspicuous a pioneer and leader, I shall indeed be glad. W. S. HL viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Luther Burbank, the Man . General Methods of Work. The Creation of New Trees The Amaryllis and the Poppy The Potato and the Pomato The Lilies Plums and Prunes The Shasta Daisy The Thornless Edible Cactus Certain General Features Breeding for Perfume Hardening and Adaptation On the Origin of New Species How May I Do It, Too;—Breeding How May I Do It, Too;—Grafting . Commercial Aspects of the Work ix . 101 . 11 . 130 . 147 . 159 . 173 . 192 . 207 . 226 248 . 268 TABLE OF CONTENTS The Carnegie Institution Grant . A Day With Mr. Burbank His Personality . The Plan Books Theories and Conclusions His Place in the World PAGE . 278 . 290 - 305 . 318 . 335 - 352 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING The improved amaryllis, with the blossoms almost a foot across and of great brilliancy . . Frontispiece Luther Burbank Mr. Burbank’s home at Santa Rosa, California On the proving grounds at Sebastopol. Pampas grass in the center, various bulbous plants in the foreground . Walnut-leaf variation. To the left, common English walnut; to the right, the native California black walnut; in the center, the new hybrid icioiiaal bred from the other two . One of the hybrid chestnuts bearing nuts at Seu months of age from the seed A bed of hybrid poppies The central poppy, a brilliant scarlet with purple center, is the offspring of the other two. The one to the left, Papaver pilosum, a delicate orange; the one to the right, Papaver somniferum, the ‘‘Bride poppy,” a pure white. Leaves of each are shown Variation in hybrid poppy leaves. Out of two thousand plants no two were alike “ ‘ 2 Hundreds of rare hybrid potato plants under glass nearly ready for transplanting . . : Wild Arizona potatoes used in breeding to give strength and hardiness to the common potato xi PAGE 16 35 46 53 60 67 78 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING Potatoes growing upon a tomato vine after grafting upon the potato root . - - ; Aérial potatoes growing upon a nae cion grafted upon a tomato plant . . F - i A rare two-petaled hybrid seedling lily The plumcot, created from the plum and apricot. A rare new fruit . z : . . The ‘‘Climax,” one of the rarest plums produced . The development of the plum. The two larger ones are seedlings of the other two The Giant plum, not only of largest size but of great rich- ness and prolific in bearing . : The sugar prune,— larger, sweeter, earlier and more pro- ductive than the older prunes One of the many rows of seedling Shasta daisies from which selection is being made. The rows are seven hundred feet long One of the ‘‘ Shasta” daisies. The blossoms are from four to six inches in diameter Fluted daisies, one of the many curious forms developed in the production of the Shasta daisies What the thornless cactus will displace —a hint of desert conditions . ‘i z é The cactus in the foreground is the ordinary thorny kind. Those in the rear are the thornless ones of the same species : , é . Cactus tests.—Thornless, hybrid seedling Opuntias, now eight weeks old from seed. They will be transplanted later, after rigid selection 2 3 xii PAGE 85 92 99 110 110 117 124 131 142 149 156 163 174 181 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING One of the thornless edible cacti, three and one-half years old, weighing, approximately, twelve hundred pounds . Forcing new forage plants under glass to get quicker results The pineapple quince, a greatly improved variety having the flavor of the pineapple < $ . Selections from sweet vernal grass under development to increase productiveness A bed of the new fragrant dahlias . The fragrant verbena which has been given the odor of the trailing arbutus - : . 7 The phenomenal berry, a new species of great size and rich- ness. Individual berries are sometimes nearly three inches long Leaves of blackberry hybrid, all grown from seed of one plant, showing the remarkable variation An outfit for an amateur breeder The essentials for amateur grafting . Upper part of a tree bearing many grafts. As many as five hundred fruits are grown upon a single tree at once, no two exactly alike 3 Showing method of grafting . Thousands of dollars’ worth of seeds and bulbs in the packing - room The original Burbank plum tree. Millions of trees have been grown from it General view of the proving grounds at Sebastopol. Show- ing many thousands of plants under test - xili PAGE 188 195 206 213 220 227 . 238 - 245 252 259 270 277 284 291 302 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING Cultivating the mammoth pieplant. Some leaves are three to four feet across. Mr. Burbank is the central figure Mr. Burbank pollinating the blossoms of a plum tree One of Mr. Burbank’s rare roses One of the few double hybrid clematises The ‘“‘Burbank” and “Tarrytown” cannas under test at Santa Rosa, where they originated The improved everlasting flower to be used in millinery . The re-created wild onion flower, Brodiva capitata, changed from a deep purple to re white and greatly in- creased in size . F ‘ oor Rare effects developed in the transformation of the colum- ‘bine; about one-fourth natural size Twenty thousand new varieties of plums in process of development ¢ i a 7 A cactus blossom A é 3 xiv PAGE 309 316 323, 334 341 348 355 359 362 366 nk a 2 & 5 ~Q Lal v 4g ~ 3 4 New Creations in Plant Life CHAPTER 1 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN UTHER BURBANK, of whose life, achievements and methods this book is to treat, is the foremost plant-breeder in the world. Over two thousand five hundred dis- tinct species are in the list of the plants upon which he has worked, embracing a large and comprehensive field of operations. He has also produced more new forms of plant life than any other man, and has exerted a unique and powerful influence. These new forms of plant life may be brought into two classes,—those which have added to the wealth of nations and enriched the dietary of the race,—as new and improved nuts, fruits and vegetables; and those which have made the world more beautiful,—the new and improved forms of flowers. Without a university training and with only 1 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE a fundamental education upon which he has builded by wide reading, he yet leads the scientific world in the department to which he has given his life. He has suffered as few men suffer, not only from actual physical want and privation but from the unjust criti- cism of those who did not comprehend; but he has preserved through it all an unshaken confidence in the ultimate triumph of all good forces in human life. He has been engaged in a line of work so novel and so profitable he could easily have built up a fortune, yet he has subjected himself all his life to the most rigid self-denial and sacrifice in order that every energy and every resource might be devoted to the betterment of the world. Luther Burbank was born in the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, not far from the city of Boston, on the 7th of March, 1849. Two controlling streams met in the forming of the main current of his life. From his father, a cultivated man of English extraction, came an intense love for books; from his mother, whose ancestry was Scotch, an ardent love for all beautiful forms of life. These two hereditary influences have been at work all (>) ~ LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN through his life,—the one broadening, the other deepening his nature. From the earliest childhood he was passion- ately devoted to flowers and to all forms of plant life. Very many incidents are related illustrative of this. His mother and sisters had noticed that whenever he was given a flower, while lying in his cradle, he always held it with a certain childish tenderness, never crushing nor dropping it but keeping it, if allowed, until its bloom was faded or its fra- grance gone. One day when his sister had given him a flower he held it in his tiny fin- gers with his usual earnestness until a petal fell off. Then, with infinite childish patience, he strove to put the petal back in place and thus restore the flower. When a little older and able to toddle about, he chose plants for pets instead of animals. He was given a plant in a pot, a so-called lobster cactus as the variety of cactus was locally known, and for hours at a time he trudged about house and yard carrying the cactus plant in his little arms. One day he stumbled and fell, broke the plant from its stem and destroyed the pot. It was a day of great sadness, for he 3 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE was as inconsolable in his grief over the loss of the pet plant as another child would have been over the death of a bird or a faithful dog. Strangely enough, a half century later, in the prime of his manhood, he has given years of his life to the study of other forms of this pet of his childhood days, creating a series of thornless, edible cacti, not only providing a vast reservoir of food for man and for un- counted millions of the beasts of the field, but paving the way for the reclamation of the desert places of the earth. That which was once a dangerous foe of man and beast be- comes, through him, a stanch friend;—it is a noble boon to the race. Year by year, as he grew into boyhood, his love for all the beautiful things in the world around him steadily deepened. As soon as he was old enough to be placed in school, he at once attracted the attention of his teachers by his love for study. The love for his school and the love for the flowers and the trees and the birds were always manifest. And in the ripe days of his prime one may see him turn with boyish eagerness from the discussion of some 4 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN deep problem of human life to listen to the note of a lark in the sky. By the time he had reached the age of twelve he had come to a knowledge of the outward forms of nature such as few lads ever attain at such an age. All the books he could command bearing upon any phase of science or nature he read and reread. The habit thus acquired has lasted. He may not be able to tell you the plot of the latest novel, but be sure he will be able to talk with you about the latest discovery of the scientists and to dissect their conclusions with consummate art. I can in no way better illustrate the trend of the lad’s mind at that time than to say that in his maturer years the author which he has read most and which he quotes more often than any other is Ralph Waldo Emerson. As a lad, he was not indifferent to the sports of other children, and entered heartily into many of them, though there was ever a greater fascination for him in the open page of a book than in rod or gun or ball. And great- est of all was the fascination of the natural world opening to him as it opens to the heart of a poet. NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE In the town of Lancaster there was a well- equipped academy to which he was drawn as soon as he had finished the common school. This he attended during the winter for several seasons, spending the rest of the year in work. The town had a large and well-stocked library, and into this, and into his father’s few but care- fully chosen books, he delved whenever there was opportunity. His father and his father’s brother, a minister, were personal friends of Emerson. The uncle’s son, the boy’s cousin, considerably older, was greatly interested in science and was also a personal friend of Agassiz, afterward becoming a successful edu- cator and a writer of more than local note on scientific topics, particularly geology. Be- tween the two there was a strong bond of friendship. The influence of such surround- ings had much to do in shaping the lad’s na- ture. Year by year environment forces were at work, and in them may be seen the proph- ecy of the development of this wonderful life. During several summers the boy worked in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, in a fac- tory. His wage was small and the work was hard and irksome, but he even then had his 6 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN ideals toward which he was working, and he kept on and up amidst many discouragements. He learned soon, however, that, as there were seven days in the week and as it cost him at least fifty cents a day to live, he could not get along very satisfactorily on a six-day wage of fifty cents. The bent of the boy’s mind now seemed to be toward what his relatives and friends thought was invention, but which, though it included invention in the ordinary meaning of the word, was far beyond this in scope. When still younger, he was standing one day by the side of a number of his elders who were vainly trying to put together a mower. One piece of the machinery would not fit, and, after much trying, they were giv- ing up, when the boy, rarely venturing a word of advice to an elder, stepped forward and sug- gested how the piece should go. It was put in place and the machine moved off. When asked how he knew the piece of iron belonged in that particular place, he replied laconically : “Because you couldn't put it anywhere else!” Studying how he might make both ends 7 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE meet in the factory on his scant pay, he dis- covered a way to construct a machine which would do away with the work of at least half a dozen men. He made the invention, and his delighted employers followed with a substan- tial increase in his pay. They predicted for him, as did his friends, a brilliant future as an inventor, and all urged him to set about such a life. He has disregarded the advice of his friends in later years, as he did then; and he has never found reason for regret, even though the way he has traveled has led through pain and _ sacrifice. Day by day in the midst of the toil of the factory, unswerved from his ideals by the promise of greater pecuniary reward, the dom- inant chord in his life was always sounding, struck as it was by the supreme purpose of his soul—to make new things better than the old, to make the old ones better than they were. All through a life no less scarred with sacrifice than adorned with triumph this same chord has sounded, deeper and broader in its harmony as the years have come, but not more true in the creation of marvelous forms of plant life than in the making of a machine to quicken and 8 - LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN cheapen the process of manufacturing a plow. But there came a day he never forgot, a red- letter day in his calendar. He had left the factory and had begun market-gardening and seed-raising in a small way. It was far more to his taste and in direct line with the future. He had noticed that there were a good many variations in the green tops of some potatoes he was raising, and that in this particular lot there was but one which bore a seed-ball. He had already begun a close study of the charac- teristics of plants, and he at once reasoned that if this seed-ball came upon but one of all the varying plants, its product, if it should be planted, should show still greater variation. So he watched this seed-ball with unusual care. One day, to his despair, he found that the seed- ball was missing. He was about to give up the whole matter when it occurred to him he would make a search upon the ground. He found the seed-ball at last, where it had been knocked off probably by some wandering dog rushing through the garden. From it came the Burbank potato, which comparatively few people associate with Luther 9 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE Burbank, the great plant-breeder. The potato which he developed from this seed-ball has not only disproved the dictum of those who said a potato famine was at hand because of the steady deterioration of the world’s stock, but it has added to the wealth of this nation alone upwards of twenty millions of dollars. The creator of the new potato sold it to a local seedsman for $150. It was not long after this that he suffered a partial sunstroke in the broiling heat of a July day and, seeking a climate where he might be able to live an outdoor life without fear of a return attack, and where he might hope some day to put in effect some of the theories of the development of plant life already stirring in his brain, he started for California, with a slender purse and ten of his new potatoes. He reached California in 1875, and went north from San Francisco some fifty miles to an unimproved valley lying between two spurs of the Coast Range Mountains, today a rich fruit and farming country. He was then a little past twenty-one, slen- der, not over-strong, and yet possessed of much vitality and endurance. These latter he 10 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN was soon called upon to put to test. The country was new, and the few ranchers and farmers had not yet begun to realize the pos- sibilities of their region in the way of fruit culture. He sought for work, that he might get ahead enough to make a start as a nur- seryman. He saw the possibilities of the country in this line and the promise of a good living, and perhaps a competence if he could only get established. But work was not easy to get. Day after day he sought it and failed, and day by day his slender store of money ran down. He did all sorts of odd jobs, many of them far beyond his strength. He heard of a new building to be put up in the frontier town. He applied for work. He had no tools, but, being promised a job if he had a shing- ling hatchet, he invested nearly all of his remaining funds in one, only to find, the next morning, that the job had gone to some one else. : He found more steady work at last at a mere pittance, cleaning out chicken-coops on a chicken-ranch. The work was disagreeable in the extreme, but he was willing to do any- thing that was honorable. At this time he 11 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE had no place to sleep nights, and for months made his bed in a chicken-coop, unable to get enough money ahead to pay for regular lodg- ings. Occasionally, when work altogether failed, he was reduced to absolute want. It was his habit at such times to go to the village meat market, secure the refuse bones saved for dogs, and get from them what meat he could. He found steady employment at last in a small nursery at a beggarly wage. Not being able to hire lodgings, he slept in a bare, damp, unwholesome room above the steaming hot- house, where for days and nights at a time his clothing was never dry. He was passing through such privations as those through which, in the strange allotments of fortune, many another great man has passed. The constant exposure and lack of nourish- ing food made rapid inroads upon a not too strong constitution, and this, with overwork, brought on an attack of fever. A woman in the neighborhood, herself in straitened cir- cumstances, found him one day in such a criti- cal condition that she insisted on sharing with him the small portion of milk which she could afford to spare from the one cow that supplied 12 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN her family. He protested against taking it because he might never be able to repay her, and, indeed, there was scant hope in his condition that he would live to do it. The woman insisted, and the pint of milk a day which she brought to him saved his life. The man who was to become the foremost figure in the world in his line of life, and who was to pave the way by his own discoveries and creations for others of all lands to follow in his footsteps, was a stranger in a strange land, close to starvation, penniless, beset by disease, hard by the gates of death. And yet never for an instant did this heroic figure lose hope, never did he abandon confidence in him- self, not once did he swerve from the path he had marked out. In the midst of all he kept an unshaken faith. He accepted the trials that came, not as a matter of course, not tamely, nor with any mock heroics, but as a passing necessity. His resolution was of iron, his will of steel, his heart of gold; he was fighting in the splendid armor of a clean life. It was a wan and haggard figure that rose at last from his sick bed and wandered from place to place in search of work. Matters 13 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE shaped themselves gradually, more and more in his favor and he went from one odd job to another, slowly saving a little money and regaining his health. The day came at last when he had a bit of a balance in the bank and soon after he was able in a small way to set up in business for himself. He secured a small plot of ground and established the nursery which was to become famous throughout not only his own state but the country at large. His heart was in his work now, but there was something else. All through these years of early manhood, in the midst of discouragement and privation, he never let go of the plan of his life—to become not merely a raiser of plants but an improver and a.creator. Even in those first days, as chance offered, he began that wonderful series of experiments which has astonished the scien- tific men of two hemispheres and established an epoch in the life of the vegetable kingdom from which the future will reckon. One day there came to the young nursery- man an order in the filling of which he dis- played that boldness of plan and audacity of execution which have many a time marked his 14 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN progress. The order was from a man who was going to start a large prune ranch. He wanted twenty thousand young prune trees to set out. It would take in the ordinary course of events from two and a half to three years for a nur- seryman to raise the trees, but this was a hurry-up order; if it was to be filled, it must be filled in nine months. He took the order. With all haste he scoured the country for men and boys to plant almonds. It was late in the season and the almond seed was the only one which would sprout at that time among all the trees that were suitable for his plans. It grows very rapidly, too, and this was taken into account. In a comparatively short time the young shoots were big enough for budding. Twenty thou- sand prune buds were in readiness, were bud- ded into the growing almonds, and the young trees started forward in their race for the prize. When the nine months were up the twenty thousand prune trees were ready. Nature had been outwitted, or, better put, had been led to outdo herself; the fruit-grower was delighted ; the young nurseryman was a good many dol- lars in pocket, Today, twenty years afterward, 15 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE one of the finest prune orchards in California or the world is growing from these trees. It was a concrete illustration of the re- sourcefulness of the man and of that which has again and again been shown in his later life, his supreme indifference to precedent. He early established an unvarying rule, never to send out anything which was not, so far as lay in his power, precisely what it was represented to be. So his name became a synonym for exact honesty,—if it came from Burbank, it was to be depended upon. An incident well illustrates the confidence men had in him when once they came to know him. He was in need of some extra money to use in carrying forward a branch of his work. He had applied for a loan unsuccessfully at quite a number of places. His very modesty and shrinkingness, in the eyes of a business man, stood against him. One day, when he had given up hope of the loan, he saw a team of horses in the distance coming down the dusty road. As the team drew near he recognized a man who lived in the region, by common repu- tation a miserable old skinflint. Hailing from the road as he drove up, he called out: 16 RIUIOFIVD ‘BSOY evJURS ye ‘aWOY Ss yuURqINg “APA LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN “Say, young feller, ’'ve been watchin’ you a long time. You’re allus attendin’ to bizness. But a man that kin do what you kin do oughter have an easier time than you're havin’. Don’t you need a little extry cash once in a while?” Greatly interested in such a query from such a man, he answered that he could use a little additional money now and then,—in fact, he knew where he could put a hundred dollars that very day, in a place where it would bring in a handsome return. Pulling out an old wallet, the so-called skin- flint counted out two hundred dollars and handed them to the astonished nurseryman. “No,” as he drove off, “I don’t want no note, nor no intrust nuther: when you git ready to pay it, all right. G’long, there!” The years now rapidly passed. The business began to yield more handsomely, and yet he was less and less satisfied with the outlook. In the midst of the exacting demands of his work, he yet found time to devote to experi- mentation with new forms of plant life,— always before him the supreme purpose of his life. Reticent by nature, though never secre- tive, he did not talk over his new ideas with 17 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE any one. No one was to know what he was engaged in until such time as he had some- thing to show for it. As he had opportunity, he read such few practical books on botany and the breeding of plants as he could find, but these, save in some matters of nomenclature and detail, were of little aid to him. He soon found out that he stood face to face with Nature, and only from her lips could he learn her secrets. He read Darwin among other scientists, and was greatly interested in the Origin of Species. In his own mind were developing, at the same time, important theories, which must be noted in a later chapter. Even as he worked the hardest, and all unknown to him- self in large measure, his own mind was being broadened and deepened. He saw before him now something of the possibilities of plant creation—his vision was strong and true, his perspective never distorted. There came another red-letter day in his calendar. It was the day when he came to the formal decision that he would give up his nursery business and devote his entire time and energies to plant-breeding. As soon as his 18 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN relatives and friends heard of his decision, they entered vehement protest. What greater folly could a man commit than to abandon a busi- ness now netting him nearly ten thousand dollars a year to embark upon a project at the best Quixotic and sure to end in financial ruin? It was the same sort of reasoning he had listened to when a boy, when his friends and relatives pictured a great career as an inventor. Ridicule, pity, scorn, harsh criticism, all were alike unavailing. He listened with pa- tience, but went forward in the line he had marked out. So one day in the year 1893 he found himself free from the exacting demands of his business life, his extensive nursery closed out. He had entered upon a career which was to be even more exacting than this business life, but he entered upon it high in hope and rich in resolution. Slowly he put into effect his plans. Having tested a new fruit or flower or an improved old one, he kept it back, following in his old lines as a nurseryman, until he was absolutely sure it was going to do precisely what he said it would do. Not until then was he ready to 19 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE put a new creation before the world. The new and improved varieties were sold to bring him revenue for the further prosecution of his work. The sums for which they sold were ridiculously small, considering the time con- sumed in their production, often years of the most patient study and experimentation, and the large revenues that were derived from the new creations by the dealers purchasing them. Perhaps from one hundred dollars, at the start, up to five hundred would be an average. Or- ders soon began coming from ‘Europe, where he gradually became better known, where, indeed, he was appreciated as he had never been in his own country. His income rose steadily, but it did not match his outlay. There were laborers’ wages to pay, supplies to be bought, funds provided for paying for the services of collectors in for- eign lands, on the lookout for new kinds of plants. His reputation was advancing, but year by year he was falling behind and en- croaching more and more upon the store set by for the rainy day. Opposition now came from many quarters. Not only did his friends see the fulfilment of 20 punoasdotoy oy} ur syuyjd snoqinq SNOHUA Moyo. ay} uL ssvad sudwug ‘jodoyseqag jv spunoid dutsoid ayy uC, LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN their predictions,—some of them very kindly telling him so,—but people who had heard of some of the strange things he had done, and who had not the breadth of vision to see what manner of man this was, pronounced him a charlatan,—a man who was creating all manner of unnatural forms of life, monstrosities, in- deed a distinct foe to the race. A minister in- vited Mr. Burbank to listen to a sermon on his work, and when the guest was in the pew denounced him in bitter fashion as a man who was working in direct opposition to the will of God, in thus creating new forms of life which never should have been created, or if created, only by God himself. Now and again arose some pseudo-scientific man who, professing unlimited friendship, sought for means to filch the rapidly increasing reputation. Others visited him with the cov- ert purpose of exposing him- as a charlatan after inspecting his methods, but, confounded by what they saw, went down the little hedge- bordered walk that leads to his quiet home shamed into silence. From various sources came offers of aid; but the keen vision of the man read every proposition in its spirit as well 21 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE as its letter and detected unerringly the efforts which, while apparently in his behalf, were in reality essentially selfish, planned so that others might profit by his experiences. There were strings to them; he would have none of them. He could divide responsibility, and apportion duty, but he could not yield authority. It would be fatal to have any other will than his own in command. But he was learning now that, to accomplish the work he had mapped out, and so to leave it that others could take it up where he left it and carry it forward, it was imperative that he have assistance. Already many millions of dollars had been added to the national wealth because of his improved fruits. Already the whole world was being brightened by his flowers. And yet, if he should be able to work without handicap, the future promised far greater results than the past. Now and again, too, he was bitterly admonished that he could not work eighteen hours out of the twenty- four. Occasional illnesses came. He found that the nature he loved so well could chide as well as cheer. Several times he was laid by with dangerous nervous breakdowns. 22 LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN At this point a plan was unfolded to him, considered somewhat at length in a later chap- ter, for substantial assistance from the Car- negie Institution in a manner which would leave him absolutely his own master and would enable that organization to become a silent partner in the furtherance of his plans. Thus the way opened to a maximum of effort at a minimum of waste. 23 CHAPTER II GENERAL METHODS OF WORK Bock passing to the individual crea- tions of Mr. Burbank, it will be of inter- est to consider the general plan of his life- work, reserving for later chapters the minutie of the methods, so presented and so fortified by advice from Mr. Burbank that the ama- teur, no less than the professional, may receive suggestions for the prosecution of plant-breed- ing, one of the most fascinating occupations in the world, and one full of great practical possibilities. Indeed, as Mr. Burbank puts it, results of enormous value to the race may at any time come from the work of any man who takes up plant-breeding with patience and intelligent interest. The aim of Mr. Burbank, aside from that paramount object always overshadowing all else, to give aid to the race, is threefold: 1. The improvement of old varieties of fruits, flowers, grasses, trees and vegetables. 24 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 2. The merging of wild, or degenerate, types of plant life with tame, or cultivated ones, in order that the union may be of service to both. 3. The creation of absolutely new forms of life, unknown to the world before,—the highest act of the plant-breeder. The general character of his work is in- cluded under two heads: 1. Breeding.—This, in its basic meaning, _ consists in uniting two plants to give birth to a third. A thousand and one things must be taken into account, all accumulating through hereditary influences and environment, and reaching out through all the future life of the plant; but, for present consideration, the chief act is parental. Breeding is accomplished by sifting the pollen of one plant upon the stigma of another, this act, pollenation, resulting in fertilization, Nature, in her own mysterious ways, bringing forth the new plant. 2. Selection——This consists in eternally choosing the best and rejecting the worst. It is co-equal in importance with breeding, the one supplementary to the other at all points. The breeding of plants is not a new act. 25 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE Generally speaking, however, those who have carried it on have worked in small quarters, perhaps in gardens or conservatories, usually with comparatively few varieties. Mr. Bur- bank early saw that this was slow work, that it would take the years of many lifetimes to accomplish what he had laid out before him. The sending of telegrams was once confined to a single message, one way, in one direction. Even this was a wonderful thing, but it was slow, and so there was devised a system of sending many messages upon the single wire in both directions at the same time. Some such transformation as this he has wrought in plant-bréeding. Instead of one or two experiments under way at the same time, he may have five hun- dred at once, all requiring constant supervi- sion, many of them extending over a period of perhaps ten years before they come to frui- tion. Instead of having a few square feet of ground or a few pots under glass, he uses acres of ground, if necessary, in a single test. In place of contenting himself with a half dozen, or even fifty plants, in making a given test, he uses if necessary a million, all of them 26 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK pressing forward in a million similar ways, «toward the same end. And out of the million “she saves perhaps i the last sifting but one, and that one the best of all. ~ Running through all the work is the con- stant effort to break up old habits of life. Mr. . Burbank sees two plants of the same, or it may “be widely differing, species. He sees that neither one is living up to its opportunities. For one reason or another they have been slowly going down in the scale, possibly for centuries; or else it may be they have been as slowly going upward from some poorer estate and have not had sufficient help. He knows that back of each one of these plants lies a long and varied history, full of incidents, replete in experiences as strange in their way and as subtle as any which come to man. This past of the plant has produced the plant of today—tomorrow it must be changed. Just as into the life of a man long inured to bad habits, the son of evil parents, tracing his lineage backward through a century of sin, Just as there must come into this life some tremendous shock, be it a death, a terror, a great love or an overpowering hate, completely 27 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE changing the course of his life and making an abrupt break in the generations of crime, so in a gentler but none the less powerful manner the plant must have the overpowering shock of re-creation, it must irrevocably break with the past. As in the case of the man, so with the flower. The initial shock and subsequent change may be followed by a reaction and a return in some measure to the old order of things; but just as care and patience and wise living and the higher aid may help the man back and steady him in a course of right living, so the plant, though it rebel at first, finally becomes fixed in its new ways and _ starts forward to enrich or glorify the world. The very least of Mr. Burbank’s labor is the actual breaking up of the plant’s life by the’ shock of re-creation, the vastest in its scope that a life can bear, such shock as even death does not bring, for it is death and life in one, the death of the old and the birth of the new. But this, however grave a change, is only an incident in the work. He must study the plant in all its relations. He must know its past intimately. He must take into account ten thousand past tendencies. He must look 28 Walnut-leaf variation. To the left, common English walnut ; to the right, the native California black walnut; in the center, the new hybrid ‘* Paradox,” bred from the other two. GENERAL METHODS OF WORK to the future of the new plant and see in what manner it is to fill out its new place in the world among its fellows and amidst perhaps radically different environments. These plants are like children. To know them you must know their ancestry ; and to know their ances- try affords at least some hint of their future. In a plant, this past, this heredity which Mr. Burbank, more clearly than it has been set forth before, pronounces “the sum of all past environments,” is perhaps more fixed than that of achild’s past, because it has not had so many obvious disturbances. It has not been subject to the inconsistencies of human love and its strange selections. This knowledge of the past of the plant and this intimate study of its life and the related life of other plants are among the factors which help to give Mr. Burbank the commanding place he holds in the world. When the past of the plant has been broken up, then comes the turning of its life forces into its new channels. Indeed, when we begin to search for the secret of Mr. Burbank’s success, we find that it lies deep, and sweeps forward with a powerful hold upon the very sources of life itself. Perhaps the flower he is 29 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE for the time considering has had a small, insig- nificant blossom all its life, all the life, anyway, that is recorded by man. Its life tendencies have centered and culminated, so to speak, in this pitifully inadequate bloom. The blossom is not only small and unattractive in form but weak in color, hard by the realm of the outcast weeds. But he has seen in it great possibil- ities; swiftly he sets about its improvement. Possibly he sees that by combining it with some near related flower friend he may make it lovelier, perhaps he decides that the only way to do is to pick out the very best of its kind from among a thousand or ten thousand plants and from this best one, poor though it may be, go on and on in a constant succession of upward selections from the plants that follow the seeding, until at last he brings forth the blossom he sought, beautiful, large, richer in color, fine and velvety in texture, a royal addition to the blossoms of the world. It takes long to do this,—perhaps twenty years. Twenty years to produce a new flower? Certainly, why not? Is it not worth it? Not that he may spend his whole time for that term on a single plant,—a whole series of them 30 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK is in process of development at once, hundreds of varieties. But it is years in almost every case before the end is reached,—so slow the work of selection from year to year, this eter- nal choosing of the best plants from the best. And there are many obstacles. When two plants are united to produce a third, no human intelligence can predict just what will follow. You have in the hollow of your hand a dozen seeds from one of your choicest apples. It had reddened in the autumn sun on a tree you had known since boyhood. You had watched it blossom in pink beauty in the springtime of other years, had seen its fruit develop in the mellowing summer, had watched its bare branches tossed in the gale when the winter snows lay deep at its feet. Here in your hand lie the seeds of this apple. It may be you are a thousand miles away from the old home where the apple tree is growing. It would be a rare delight for you, transplanted to another region, and for your children after you, to raise another tree from the seeds of the old friend. So you plant your twelve seeds to rear on a new soil the old friend, and not one of them comes into a life in any particular like the 31 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE life of the old tree at home—indeed, it may turn out not one of them bears fruit fit for the tongue. So it may be with a new life from cross-bred- ing and selection,—the end cannot always be foretold. But Mr. Burbank does not content himself with the use of two or three plants as stock, taking chances on their failure to make progress. Many men have used a few plants and have found certain results following, and now and again has arisen one who, from his few experiments, has reached certain results which entitle his deductions, he believes, to be known thereafter as laws. Mr. Burbank has never worked in this way. He early saw that to carry on his plans in the broadest and best manner, to avoid the delays incident to a failure of a single plant to show improvement, he must work with thousands where necessary, indeed, with tens of thousands; indeed, more than this, with a million plants if needs be. For example, in breeding lilies he has used as high as five hundred thousand plants in a single test. Out of this enormous number there naturally were great variations, and so before his eyes spread out a vast panorama, 32 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK rich in varied opportunities for initial selec- tion. Out of this initial selection he makes final choice of the best. Sometimes he has marked out a certain line of life for a flower. He has bred and se- lected to that end. For a time all goes as he had planned, but suddenly a new trait de- velops, something which completely throws all former plans out of gear. He does not aban- don the test, but watches with the intensest interest the new development. If the plant persists in its way,—and the new way is better,— he leaves the old and follows the new. No man is quicker to give up, when convinced that giving up is best. But he is not con- vinced easily ;— the evidence against him must be unanswerable. Now and then out of the muck of some slum, reeking with moral filth, and developing with unwholesome rapidity the seeds of anarchy and crime, a white, pure life springs up, persists, maintains its guard against all temptations, comes back, mayhap, in later years to help redeem its birthplace. And so ina similar way a flower sometimes breaks away from the line of life all logic and reason would say it should follow. 33 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE The new plant may develop certain charac- teristics like those of one parent, certain others like those of the other parent. It may inherit length of stem from one, breadth of leaf from the other, or it may have stem and leaf wholly unlike either. And this latter is frequently the end sought,—to produce a different type from that of either and from that produce by long selection a type superior to either parent. Very much of breeding is breaking up. I recall with interest a conversation with a gentleman in the city of London concerning the terrible depravity among the young men of that city. There were at that time fully eight hundred thousand young men in the city between the ages of eighteen and twenty- five. He was perhaps better acquainted with the youth of the greatest city in the world than any other man in it. He said, as the re- sult of his years of experience, that, but for the inflow of country blood into the veins of London, London life would become practi- cally extinct in three generations,—so vast the vice. Just as this, and all other great cities, are strengthened physically, mentally and, indeed, 34 Cne of the hybrid chestnuts, bearing nuts at eighteen months of age from the seed GENERAL METHODS OF WORK morally, by the influence of those who are born and reared in country places, so, many times, a plant which has long lived in a care- less civilization having lost its vitality, needs a new infusion of blood. Mr. Burbank has ever been a close student of all the outward forms of nature, as well as of all her strange inner_ life. All through all the years he has been working upon the flowers and plants he has found in the open, using them frequently for this very purpose to strengthen the strain of some over-civilized plant needing the fresh impulse of the wild, strong neighbor of the mountains or forest. Collectors in all quarters of the world, too, are steadily on the lookout to provide him with plant life from their re- gions, sometimes wild, sometimes tame, with which to make combinations or developments. So he is confined to no one species nor to any one line of combinations. The whole world is his field, and he makes his selections and forms his combinations in absolute dis- regard of all precedent. The end in view is the point, how to reach it most directly. It may be along so-called scientific lines, it may be in absolutely new and original paths,— 35 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE more likely the latter,— but the means are the non- essentials, the end is paramount. It will be seen that in order to accomplish the results that are changing in many ways the plant life of the world and opening the way to still greater changes, something else must enter into the matter than mere observa- tion, however keen, than knowledge, however deep, than experience, however broad. And this strange, intangible thing, for want of a better term, we call intuition. There comes a day each year in Mr. Bur- bank’s work when the fruit trees under test, for example, must come up for scrutiny. Selection is to be put to one of its uses. Selection, selection of the best, must be ever operative from the time the plant is first chosen from its fellows;—it is the continual survival of the fittest; but now comes selec- tion on a larger scale. Perhaps there are a hundred thousand of these fruit trees one or two years of age. They have been planted at Mr. Burbank’s proving grounds at Sebastopol, a few miles from his home in Santa Rosa. They have been cared for with patience and with trained minds working over them, and 36 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK now has come their crucial test: each one must pass in review before the eye of their master. In the ordinary course of plant-breeding each one of these hundred thousand plants would need to be grafted, or budded, each one would need individual care. It would require at least five years before the final test would come and a showing be made of the value, or the worthlessness, of each particular tree. While no such test in a single experiment has ever been made, it may be stated in general terms that to graft and carry through to the end of the five-year period a hundred thousand trees would involve an outlay in actual money, and in rental value of the large area of ground necessary at least ten dollars per tree—a total of one million dollars. This is saved by Mr. Burbank in one work- ing day. It is saved by that faculty which - is best expressed by the term intuition. With assistants to bring and carry away the tiny slender trees, perhaps now grown to a height of one to three feet, he passes upon the hundred thousand in a single day, going over them with lightning-like rapidity, challenging 37 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE them the instant they meet his eye, determin- ing instantly whether or not they are fit to live. This is selection in one of its most im- ° portant forms and carried on as it never has been carried on before. Instantly he detects faults and as quickly determines excellencies. How does he do it? How does a child know enough to shun an evil man? How does a maiden know whether the man setting siege to her heart is to be trusted with her life? How does a man of sensitive fiber know instantly, without word or sign, that his traveling companion is a cut- throat by nature, whether or not he wear a bandit’s garb? Mr. Burbank decides upon his trees by in- tuition. He puts a case this way: You may meet a hundred men, a thousand, or even ten thousand men upon the street of a great city, and instantly, without taking into account any particular feature, you know that they are different. No matter how similar in general, the line of difference is absolute. A hundred men pass before a merchant seeking a man for a position of trust—he can tell at a glance and with seldom an error whether or 38 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK not he is going to want any one of them. He does not know how—he simply utilizes his intuition; and Mr. Burbank can tell his trees with even greater accuracy. One day a loyal friend laughingly suggested a test. He was not in doubt as to Mr. Bur- bank’s word, but he would like visual demon- stration. So a series of trees was passed before Mr. Burbank in the usual way. These he instantly separated into good, mediocre and poor. They were all grafted or budded in the usual way and then, after several years, when the time for final test came, the results showed that, in every instance, he had decided the precise nature of the tree and its relative value. When the long period of a given test has been concluded, the rejected plants, shrubs or trees are gathered in large bonfires and burned, and the ground stands clear for an- other test. In a single year as many as four- teen of these huge bonfires have been lighted upon the hills of Sebastopol, consuming hundreds of thousands of plants. And out of all that entered the test, probably not more than one or two have been saved,—all 39 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE the rest have been rejected because they did not show improvement over old forms, because they did not promise to add anything to the beauty or the utility of the world. One plant out of five hundred thousand, all the rest destroyed, the results of all the labor of a decade ending in smoke,—no wonder the people living hard by, before they came to know what it all meant, pronounced this strange man going up and down their country lanes so gently and silently, a wild, erratic creature—indeed, more than one sagely held him bereft of all sound judgment. Before passing to a more detailed considera- tion of Mr. Burbank’s great achievements it will be of interest to note briefly some of his leading creations. The list includes: The improved thornless and spiculess edible cactus, food for man and beast, to be the reclamation of the deserts of the world; the primus-berry, a union of the raspberry and blackberry, the first recorded instance of the creation of a new species, together with the phenomenal berry created from the California dewberry and the Cuthbert raspberry, and the plumeot, the union of the plum and the 40 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK apricot, all three the accomplishment of what had been said to be an impossibility; a plum with no pit, one with the flavor of a Bartlett pear, one having a rare fragrance, many plums of great value, rapidly replacing older varie- ties; a walnut with a shell so thin that the birds visited the branches and destroyed the nuts, necessitating the reversion of the process to make the shell of the right thickness; a walnut bred with no tannin in its meat, the coloring matter of the skin which has a dis- agreeable taste; a tree which grows more rapidly than any other tree ever known in the temperate zones of the world; the Shasta daisy, a blossom five to seven inches in diame- ter, made out of a wild field daisy, a Japanese and an English daisy; gladioli of greatly enhanced beauty, taught to bloom around their entire stem like a hyacinth instead of the old way, on one side; a dahlia with its disagreeable odor driven out and in its place the odor of the magnolia blossom; a lily with fragrance of the Parma violet, and a scentless verbena given the intensified fragrance of the trailing arbutus; a chestnut tree which bears nuts in eighteen months from time of seed- 41 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE planting; fruit trees which will withstand freez- ing in bud and flower; a poppy so increased in size that it measures ten inches across its brilliant bloom; an amaryllis bred up from two to three inches to nearly a foot in diam- eter; a calla increased in size until it measures ten to twelve inches in breadth, and then, the process being reversed, bred down to less than two inches; the white blackberry, a rare and beautiful fruit and as toothsome as beautiful; thousands of varieties of lilies. He has greatly improved the plums, pears, apples, cherries, grapes, quinces and peaches by selection and breeding; has developed many varieties of flowers, improving them in color, hardiness and yield; and has added much to the pro- ductiveness and edibility of vegetables. Pie- plant with leaves four feet in diameter, bearing every day in the year; a prune three or four times larger than the ordinary French prune and greatly enriched; the pomato, an improve- ment on the poisonous potato ball, producing arare fruit which grows upon the top of a potato; blackberries without thorns; the im- proved Australian star flower, one of the everlasting varieties which is to be used for 42 GENERAL METHODS OF WORK the decoration of ladies’ hats; a larkspur greatly enlarged in size and given a delightful odor; many improved varieties of grasses; improved tobacco;— these are among the works which have come from his hand; others promising even more important results are now under way. To study more closely some of the wonder- ful achievements of this man is like opening successive doors into some strange vast castle where every apartment is the scene of a miracle, 43 CHAPTER III THE CREATION OF NEW TREES AO the thousands of people who visit Mr. Burbank’s home from year to year are many who come out of idle curiosity, some who are prominent in scientific lines, whom he delights to welcome if they are sincere, some who come prepared to find fault and to over- throw, if possible, what has been built up. One day when there came a man who had been deeply interested in forestry, conversa- tion fell upon the breeding of trees, the pro- duction of new and improved varieties of trees by means of cross-fertilization and selection. The visitor had decided views upon the subject, and at once raised the question of the feasibility, even of the possibility, of any suc- cessful experimentation in tree-breeding, such as that Mr. Burbank had carried on in other plant life. In the first place, the experiments would need to be carried over through a series of generations, and, so slow the growth of the 44 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES trees, the man who began them would long have been dead before anything like important results would have been attained, thus largely eliminating continuity of effort and_ satisfac- tory personal supervision. Again, what was there to be gained in attempting to improve the trees of the world as they stand? And, again, there was the improbability of anything like satisfactory results in any fertilization— the whole scheme was interesting but specula- tive. Nor was there any practical bearing,— where could there be found any scientific value in the plan? In all lines of Mr. Burbank’s work the most satisfactory answer to the arguments of those who hold that, because such and such a thing has never yet been accomplished, therefore, it cannot be accomplished, is a fact. It was so in this instance. All that was necessary to do was to point to a single row of trees standing in front of his home at Santa Rosa, just out- side the white fence that surrounds his grounds. They are noble trees, tall, wide- spreading, stately, pleasant to look upon, dig- nified and substantial as trees go, not weak or irresolute, possessing that indefinable attribute 45 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE which, even in trees, we call character. These trees answered every argument advanced. They were the result of breeding and selec- tion; they had not been long in growing, not over a dozen years; they were economically important. Some ten or fifteen years before, Mr. Bur- bank had studied the question of tree improve- ment with great care. All sides of the plant life of the world appeal to him. If he can see a chance for improvement, it matters not to him what the obstacles in the way or what the contentions of those who are chained to tradi- tions. He had long seen a chance for marked improvement in certain varieties of the wal- nut. He took an English walnut and a com- mon California black walnut, as types on which to work, crossed them by fertilization, raised seedlings from these, then selected the very best of the progeny; and so bred for- ward, ever picking out those which ap- proached nearest his ideal until, at last, he had a set of hybrid seedlings which he was willing to trust to themselves. A half dozen of the trees were set out in the hard earth in front of his house in the 46 saiddod pruqéy ay} Jo poq W THE CREATION OF NEW TREES street, where they would receive no cultivation and no irrigation in days of drought. They were left to shift for themselves. Fourteen years passed and, in 1905, the trees had be- come nearly eighty feet in height, their branch- spread was fully seventy-five feet, their trunks were fully two feet in diameter at the height of a man’s head, and not much less than that at the point of the first branch, some twelve to fifteen feet above the ground. The wood is of fine grain, hard, very compact, having a lustrous, silky effect and taking a high polish. Sometimes the annual growth will be an inch or more, the successive layers giving to the sawn timber interesting and novel effects. The wood is suitable for furniture manufac- ture, for inside furnishings of houses, or for any place where open ornamental woodwork treatment is employed. For fuel the wood gives a steady, strong heat, combining com- parative ease in cutting with the hardness essential for good burning. Just across the street from Mr. Burbank’s home stands another row of walnut trees. They have been growing a little over twice as long as the ones on Mr. Burbank’s side of the 47 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE road. They stand about fifteen feet high, they are perhaps six inches in trunk diameter. These trees belong to a past generation; the noble trees on his side of the road are of the progressive today. In fourteen years the new tree grew six times as much as the older tree had grown in thirty years. In addition to their specifically economic value, the new trees are very beautiful, making an ideal tree for shade in private grounds, for an avenue approaching some country estate, to over-arch in gothic strength some beautiful city street. Along with the production of this tree which Mr. Burbank named the “Paradox” he worked on a different combination, though produced in the same way. The Paradox was particularly suited to regions like California, where winters are not severe. He wanted another tree, as rapid in growth, as fine for timber, as valuable for fuel, which would grow in any climate where the hardy northern black walnut would grow. So he joined together the native California black walnut and the old- fashioned New England black walnut, produc- ing a new hybrid which he named the “Royal.” This tree has answered all the demands made 48 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES upon it, and is fully equal to the Paradox. I recall seeing one of these Royal trees standing isolated in the front yard of a fruit ranch on the road to Sebastopol. It had been set out, a tiny sapling, at about the same time the trees were set out in the street in front of Mr. Bur- bank’s home, and in the dozen years it had grown to magnificent proportions, completely dwarfing the other trees in the vicinity, even the large native live-oaks which are so conspic- uous a feature of the northern California land- scape. Each of the new walnuts grows in comely fashion, having no bad habits and readily yielding to the pruning-knife or to training, in case a branch shows any signs of ungraceful waywardness. In a general way, the physical characteristics of each tree are quite like those of the other. These trees have been bred for purely com- mercial ends, though they possess rare beauty as well. The nuts, at first, were not thought to have any special value, the object in the scheme of breeding being to develop the tree itself rather than its fruit, but, as the experi- ment progressed, it was found that certain of the seedlings produced fine hybrid walnuts, 49 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE different in form from the parent nuts and far more abundant, while possessing a unique and delightful flavor. The leaves upon the trees, as is noted in another chapter, are of many inter- esting varieties, and when rubbed in the fingers or crushed, or even when merely handled, give out a delightful fragrance somewhat like that of the apple, but as powerful and lasting as that of a rose or a lily. But to come to the main life-plan of the new trees, it appears that they are in some ways the most important contribution Mr. Burbank has made to the specifically commer- cial life of the world. A simple computation will illustrate this,—the results are so remark- able as to challenge one’s credulity, but they are results based solely upon facts, unadorned by any speculation. Mr. Burbank says that for the best commer- cial purposes the trees of either variety should be set out not less than forty feet apart, in order to allow ample space for each. The root system is very extensive, and there must be plenty of room for each tree below ground, as well as large allowance for the spread of the branches. About thirty-six trees to the acre is 50 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES the number he thinks will produce the best results. At the end of twelve years each tree will offer a clear trunk without branches which, when stripped of its outer slabs and squared, will be at least fifteen feet long by a foot and a half square. This will give three hundred feet of clear timber, board measure, per tree. Black walnut lumber has been steadily disappearing from the market. Year by year it has as steadily increased in price until it has now become one of the rare woods, running in cost from $200 per thousand feet, board measure, to $600 or $700 per thousand feet for particularly fine pieces. Taking but $250 as the average price of black walnut lumber per thousand, certainly a conservative figure, at the end of the twelve- year period each tree is worth approximately ‘$80. The acre yield would be $2,880. For an average farm of 160 acres the revenue for the twelve years, with no outlay save the cost of planting, not over twenty-five cents per tree, taxes upon the land, and interest upon money invested, would be a little over $460,000. This does not take into account the value of the branches, and the refuse slabs of the mill-saw- 51 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE ing, which for fuel would amount to at least four cords per tree— about $24,000 for the total farm, or a grand total for the 160 acres for lumber and fuel amounting to $485,000. These figures seem absolutely preposterous, but it must be borne in mind that the trees are now to be seen growing at the end of a fourteen-year period, and that every item has been carefully verified ;— hence the conclusion is legitimate, even if staggering. Naturally, should everybody go in for hybrid walnut raising, the price of this now rare lumber would be reduced, but, so valuable is it in so many ways,—for furniture, bank and office furnish- ings, dwelling interiors, for wainscoting and ceilings where costly woods are sought,—and so remarkable is it as a producer of wood for fuel, it is not at all likely that there would soon be a glut in the market. In conversation with a practical manufac- turer of lumber to whom this new work of Mr. Burbank was a revelation, he raised the point that, so far as his knowledge went, fast- growing trees were usually trees of soft grain which were not suitable for fine finishing. The strange fact is, however, that these new 52 The central poppy, a brilliant scarlet with purple center, is the offspring of the other two. The one to the left, Papaver pilosum, a delicate orange ; the one to the right, Paparer somnifermm, the ‘Bride poppy,” a pure white. Leaves of each are shown. THE CREATION OF NEW TREES trees have apparently defied all precedent,— they are not only of phenomenal rapidity of growth but they preserve all the hardness, tenacity and evenness of grain of their slow- growing ancestors. When I raised this point in conversation with Mr. Burbank, he sprang up from his chair in his characteristically ener- getic manner, was out of the room in a trice, and as swiftly returned from his repair-shop bearing a piece from a huge branch which had been cut off from one of the trees. It had been roughly squared by the workman and part of one side had been planed. The wood was unusually heavy to the hand, more like some dense tropic wood and very hard. It was of a beautiful color, the finish even by the plane alone showing its possibilities for taking a high polish. It will make a rare wood in its lighter color and will assume the darker wal- nut color when it is soaked for many months in water, as the black walnut is soaked before sawing in order to give it the peculiar dark hue. In point of fact, however, there are no doubt many who would prefer the lighter satiny tints to the darker. The heavy annual growth of the tree, forming such large layers, 53 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE adds another and distinctive note of interest to the grain of the finished wood. In order to secure the opinion of practical men upon the new wood, samples were sub- mitted to wood - workers, furniture finishers, carvers, painters, and merchant lumbermen. It was particularly interesting to note the ex- pression upon the faces of these matter-of-fact men as they saw, the first of all industrialists to look upon it, this new factor in the manu- facturing forces of the world. After the initial exclamation of wonderment, out would come a pocket rule, to measure the annular growth, each man seeming to doubt his own eyes. Then a sharp knife would be whipped out to test the wood for hardness; or, if it were a painter or finisher at work, brushes were at once dropped and a close and critical exam- ination and test of the grain of the wood followed, volleys of questions being fired meanwhile. Welding together many opinions expressed by these practical men, these statements may be taken as the consensus: The production of a hard wood of the character of this at such a phenomenal rate of 54 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES growth would be considered an impossibility without the evidence of a man’s own eyes. The new wood is as hard as the old-fash- ioned black walnut, somewhat harder when fully seasoned. It has a finer grain than the old walnut and takes a higher polish. It is nearer the mahogany grades than any other walnut and remarkably like some of the tropic mahoganies. Its possibilities when quartered or when sawn for other novel effects in veneers, are large. The width of the annual growth makes it peculiarly suitable when sawn in long strips for wainscoting and like effects. While the fiber of the wood is hard, it is fine for working as well as for polishing. Nearly every man spoke of the possibilities of this new tree in rapidly re-foresting the earth, as well as of the fact that it would give a marked impetus to the use of hard wood for fuel, while marking what might be called a new era in manufacturing. The trees of these two varieties which Mr. Burbank has produced have been given no 55 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE attention whatever. He says that by culti- vation and irrigation they would probably be led to produce as much timber in eight or ten years as they have done in fourteen years with no aid. The Paradox will grow in any climate similar to that of California, anywhere where the English walnut will grow; the Royal will grow anywhere in the United States, or any other country, where the hardy New England black walnut will grow. The secret of these wonderful trees lies in the fact that Mr. Burbank selected them from the most rapid-growing of all the many thousands of seedlings he had under test, at the same time taking into account all the other characteristics that were essential. Enor- mous rapidity of growth, so to use the words, in the early life of the seedling has been main- tained in after years so that these two trees now stand at the head — the most rapid - grow- ing trees in the temperate zones of the globe. They are deciduous, losing their leaves like the elm and maple in the late autumn. In this, as in so many other lines of Mr. Burbank’s investigations, a new field is now opened up for practical work. It now becomes 56 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES possible to produce trees at will for practi- cally any purpose,—for ornamentation, for shade, for fuel, for manufacturing purposes; to breed together trees from widely separated quarters of the globe, each having some de- sirable characteristic the other has not, uniting the best of both in the child of the two, and then selecting and selecting through a series of years until the desired end is reached. Hardiness, longevity, rapidity of growth, sym- metry of form, adaptability,—all play their part, all may be called upon to act at the proper moment. Mr. Burbank has given deep thought to this branch of breeding, realizing the vast importance to the world in any suc- cessful plan for maintaining and increasing its tree life. Upon this point he says: “The possibilities of improvement in trees are so great as to make it seem almost an ex- aggeration to state them. Trees may be bred together within certain specific limits, to pro- duce other trees of different character at will, combining the characters of the parents or developing wholly new ones. In human life pre-natal influences are marvelously powerful and extraordinarily diverse, and the spiritual 57 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE pre-natal influences are immeasurably more powerful than the physical ones. So that while the future no doubt holds much for the good of the race in the matter of an improved human stock, these influences are at present, at least, far too diverse and powerful to be mastered or even taken clearly into account. A single and apparently very slight thing may influence a whole human life, indeed, may influence many lives directly and indirectly through generations. Not so with a tree. Its life is more fixed and stable. It has been fol- lowing the same influences and never depart- ing to any extent from a given course for centuries upon centuries. It does not yield easily. It is stubborn, persistent, it must be pressed upon harder and harder. “But when it yields, it yields unreservedly. Supply the right amount of pressure and the thing is done. Then, when its new life is fixed, it will persist in the new way as it has in the old. Take, for example, a tree which produces pitch, or maple-sugar, or tannin, or camphor, or quinine. Now if the ability of any one of these trees for producing its valuable product is fixed, but its capacity meager, this capacity 58 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES may be increased at will simply by breeding for this one trait and by selecting with this end constantly in view. Thus, a tree or a whole forest, for the principle covers all, may be bred to produce a vastly increased supply of any one of these commodities, double and treble its former amount, thereby becoming immensely more valuable. So in trees whose bark may be valuable for coloring matter, the coloring matter may be increased at will, making the tree that much more important from a commercial point of view. Any de- sirable attribute of a tree may be increased at will. There is work enough to be done in this line for the government to put at work a thousand experts, and the possibilities ahead of them are so great that the whole face of nature might be changed by them by an in- telligent, patient and systematic following of breeding and selection. “Take the line of producing trees upon which to graft others in order to hurry these others onward to quicker fruitage. For exam- ple, we will say a certain prune has very desir- able qualities—it is high in sugar-content, large in size, admirable for curing and packing. 59 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE But it has an inadequate root service, and when it comes to bearing on its own stock, it soon exhausts itself and becomes unable to support the top; it gradually produces less and less and of a steadily deteriorating quality. What is to be done? Why, simply give it a new foundation upon which to build. The almond grows very rapidly, several times as fast as the prune. Graft the prune upon the almond when the almond has its root system established, say at five years of age, and let the almond do the hard work. See how the almond will send the prune bounding forward! It gives the prune its needed basic supply of food, and so the prune has nothing to do but to go onward, bearing abundantly. “ There are certain trees that are hustlers,— strong, vigorous, fast-growing, self-reliant, powerful to resist untoward circumstances. These must be made to help their weaker brethren, to give them better commercial qualities. Take it in the line of a walnut bred for fuel, to say nothing of lumber for manufac- ture. Suppose a man buys a walnut tree large enough to set out and pays fifty cents for it, and in ten years it will produce ten cords of wood 60 DYYL aon OM} Ou syuyd puvsnoyy on} JO MQ ‘seavay Addod prqdy ur uoyeue,s THE CREATION OF NEW TREES worth five dollars a cord—isn’t the money well invested? Isn't it better to pay fifty cents for such a tree and get such results than to get another tree for nothing which in ten years will produce one cord? Suppose a man has a fine rich walnut or other nut which will produce ten times as many nuts when grafted upon a faster growing tree as it will pro- duce upon its own roots—doesn’t it pay to graft it? “In considering the development of new kinds of trees.and in improving old ones, it must always be borne in mind that no two trees are alike. Two trees may start out, for example, upon apparently precisely the same conditions, but one will grow a foot while the other is growing an inch. Oftentimes among a lot of seedlings one will grow from a hundred to five hundred times as much in a season as its comrade raised from precisely the same kind of seed. This fast-growing one is the one to choose, and by selection it may be developed still more until, as in the case of the walnut I have bred, it stands at the head of all trees in the temperate zones for rapidity of growth. Both this fast-growing seedling and its slower 61 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE comrade had the same chance, but one of them was a hustler and the other was not. “The fact is too often lost sight of, or not known at all, that the tops of the trees abso- lutely govern the roots. The leaves are the lungs and the stomach of the tree. The food is digested, so to speak, in the leaves and there made accessible for the tree as a whole. If a tree be fine of foliage it will be powerful in all its parts, because it has the capacity to take so much nourishment from the air,— four-fifths of it being nitrogen, which is the chief source of supply for plant-food. The sun, too, plays its important part,—condensed sunshine and condensed air are the chief articles of the tree’s diet. “Each tree, too, has its own individual characteristics and traits, as well as being absolutely unlike all other trees in form and structure, and these traits must be studied and taken carefully into consideration. Take the one act of fruit-bearing. I find that in certain instances I have bred trees to bear too much fruit, the matter was overdone. It came about by constantly selecting from seedling trees which were heavy fruit-bearers, all the time 62 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES seeking to make even these increase. The result has been in some cases that I have had to go backward again to a point where the tree could produce its maximum of fruit without imperiling its efficiency. “Bear in mind that, in the production of any new tree, selection plays the all-important part. First, one must get clearly in mind the kind of tree he wants, then breed and select to that end, always choosing through a series of years the trees which are approaching nearest the ideal, and rejecting all others. “There is another important feature of a tree to be used for manufacture,—its grain. It is perfectly feasible to breed a tree up to a certain general style of grain, by constantly selecting for this special characteristic. As no two trees are absolutely alike on their exte- riors, so it is with the interior of the tree. Cut open a series of cross-bred seedlings— some are dark, some are light, some are close- grained, some are coarse, some show tenden- cies toward beautiful markings, some are plain, some have wavy grain, some have straight. So pick out from them the grain you want, and continue selecting and breeding with 63 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE this stock as a basis; finally you have the perfected tree just as you wish it. Once pro- duced, it is, save in minor essentials, unchang- ing. You can change the grain of the tree, or its bark, or its top, or its trunk, or its leaves, or its roots, or its quantity of quinine, or sugar, or pitch, or what not;—you can hardly think of anything you cannot do with it. You can make it grow tall or short, huge of girth or slender, narrow of branch or broad, you can change the number of leaves it will bear upon a branch and their shape. You can chemically transform it, too. Of course, the habits of the tree must first be firmly enough fixed through sufficient generations so that it will not revert—then it will go onward in its new course; or, by grafting, at once. “There are certain things which do not seem possible, certain crosses of trees of widely separated species that seem out of the ques- tion. Still, while these crosses may never become what might be termed commercially effective, not practical, in other words, yet they may be what may be called scientifically successful. In other words, the actual act of crossing may be accomplished where it has 64 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES apparently been impossible. But this much may be done even in these remote cases: “Two given species will not readily yield to union. Make a cross between them, take the seeds of the progeny and plant them. Cross two other diverse species in the same way and plant the seeds of their progeny. Then to the progeny of the first union unite the progeny of the second, and from this later union you may sometimes get marvelously satisfactory results. The outcome of either main cross would be unsatisfactory, perhaps unimportant; the union of their progeny may obviate the difficulty. The possibilities of such crossing and its subsequent selection are inconceivably great. “It is my opinion that one of the most important, in some ways the most important of all the many fields open now to the plant- breeder, is this one of the production of new and the improving of old trees. I believe it to be of immense significance commercially.” Closely allied to this production of a tree is the improvement of the product of the tree, its nuts. Deciding that it would be well to have an English walnut with a thinner shell, 65 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE Mr. Burbank began a series of tests looking to that end by constantly selecting seedling trees whose nuts bore toward the point aimed at. They responded heartily to the demands made upon them, so readily, indeed, that one day the nuts were found so thin of shell the birds could pick through them. This required an absolutely opposite breeding, so the trees were bred backward again along the path they had come until just the required thickness of shell was reached. So it was also with almonds, the shell being bred to suit, while similar results may be reached with other nuts. At the same time, general excellence and the question of productivity were under con- sideration constantly, with the result that a - finer, larger and more prolific nut was pro- duced. In line with what Mr. Burbank has done with grafting a physically insignificant tree upon a stronger one, a California nut- grower grafted Mr. Burbank’s new soft-shelled English walnut upon a native black walnut of rapid growth. The average annual produc- tion of nuts per tree in the region had been from seventy to one hundred pounds. The black walnut tree, when grafted with this new 66 Hundreds of rare hybrid potato plants under glass nearly ready for transplanting THE CREATION OF NEW TREES English walnut, produced on an average four hundred and fifty pounds of nuts per season, in some cases as high as five hundred and fifty-two pounds. In the skin or outer layer of the meat of the walnut is more or less tannin, a substance which, when present in considerable quanti- ties, relatively, gives the skin a dark appear- ance and makes the meat more or less bitter and disagreeable to the taste. In some wild nuts when it appears in larger quantities, it becomes positively dangerous. While the out- side of the walnut is commercially changed by bleaching, the inside is not reached and the tannin has remained. Mr. Burbank thought that if Nature had allowed this undesirable substance to enter into the walnut, she could be induced to give it up, so he set about breeding the tannin out, succeeding at last in driving it entirely away, leaving the meat a pure creamy white. At the same time, he developed the size of the nut also, making it from a quarter to a third larger than its parents. Turning his attention to the chestnut, he decided to relieve it of some of its bur, and 67 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE so by years of selection and breeding, the basis of all this work, he changed the thickness and the substance of the bur at will, finally demonstrating that, if necessary, the outer portion of the bur might be wholly done away with, leaving a smooth surface. To breed it too thin, however, would be undesirable, the bur being the nut’s protection against birds. The life character of the chestnut was also changed in marked degree. He set about producing a chestnut that would bear nuts early in life. Ordinarily it would be all the way from ten to twenty-five years before a chestnut tree raised from seed would begin to bear. Mr. Burbank decided that was alto- gether too slow for modern days, so he has made the chestnut bear nuts at the age of a year and a half; indeed, nuts have come upon trees not over seven months old. In this way the commercial possibilities are suggested— where Nature does not move fast enough, she must be helped to more rapid progress. From the standpoint of the adornment of the world, including with this that splendid sentiment which is becoming more and more 68 THE CREATION OF NEW TREES manifest, looking toward the preservation of forests and the rapid re-foresting of denuded areas, as well as from the purely economic point of view, looking to the creation of new types of trees better than the old and bringing the old up to a higher standard of efficiency, Mr. Burbank’s work in tree-breeding is of commanding importance. In itself it is quite sufficient to have made the reputation of any plant-breeder in the world. 49 CHAPTER IV THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY MONG the thousands of letters which Mr. Burbank receives from all quarters of the globe are very many having unusual interest because of the prominence of the writers and because of their interest in the remarkable work of which they make inquiry, but he has seldom received one of such pecu- liar interest as that which came from a pro- fessor of a far eastern college. It told of the loss of a little son. In the depths of his great bereavement the father had sought for some memorial which should be a visible token of the rare life that had gone. So he chose one of the exquisitely beautiful amaryllis plants which Mr. Burbank had created, to plant upon the child’s grave. The letter told of the splen- did blossoms that came and of the deep sat- isfaction that such a monument had been chosen. The flower was of rare color and great size; it would be a lasting memorial. 70 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY He must be blind to all sense of color who is not deeply impressed by the brilliancy of these magnificent blossoms when seen in great masses. Through years of the most patient and painstaking labor Mr. Burbank has devel- oped the amaryllis from a flower having a few inches of breadth until it is very nearly a foot in diameter and with every shade of crimson or pink or scarlet and many rare and unusual blendings, all the colors being greatly intensi- fied. The usual methods of breeding and selecting were followed. It was found that the huge flowers were far too heavy for the ordinary amaryllis stem, so the complete trans- formation of the plant itself was planned. The stem was changed to meet the demands of the heavy flower, a low stout plant result- ing, not more than eighteen inches high, with thick leaves and sturdy trunk. When a bed of these new amaryllis is in blossom it pre- sents a spectacle of rare beauty, the great gorgeous blossoms illuminating the whole surroundings as with crimson flames. Under ground even more wonderful changes have taken place. If you take two amaryllis bulbs, one of the old type, one of the new, 71 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE and place them side by side, you will see an even greater contrast than that which ap- pears in the blossoms. The ordinary bulb will be two to three inches in diameter at the largest part and will weigh a pound or a little over. The new bulb is fully eight inches in diameter, twelve to fifteen inches in height and weighs from six to eight pounds. It is graceful in shape, having the form of a beauti- ful vase. In color it is like brownish copper with inner folds of silver. But the most remarkable feature of the bulbs is their wonderful power of multiplica- tion. In place of four or five bulbs, as in the old plant, the new amaryllis produces all the way from forty to fifty. When they were first introduced the bulbs sold at six dollars each, but by this rapid multiplication they will soon be produced so that they may be sold for a few cents each—then the poorest man may glorify his garden by these magnificent blos- soms, and no one will be happier thereby than the generous-hearted man who has made them possible. When Dr. Hugo de Vries, the great Dutch botanist, visited Mr. Burbank in the summer 72 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY of 1904, called to America mainly by his in- tense desire to see Mr. Burbank and to learn in person something of his work, he was deeply interested in the amaryllis experiments. He wrote an exhaustive article for a Dutch magazine comprising many thousands of words descriptive of his visit to Mr. Burbank,—fur- ther mention of which is elsewhere made,— and the following appears in regard to the amaryllis: “ Another example (of hybrids) is the ama- ryllis, which with us is a hothouse plant, but which, in California’s beautiful climate, may be raised in the open. Thus it is made possible to bring to flowering tens of thousands of seedlings, while in Europe we can select only from a few hundreds. In such a ratio as this, the number of years necessary to bring about as great improvements is much less. It re- quired more than half a century to get the amaryllis with their large flowers neatly closed in with their numberless shades and stripes which we admire so much. Burbank, of course, is able to hasten the process. “Years ago, when the improvement of fruit trees almost exclusively drew his attention, he 73 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE raised and crossed the amaryllis, but only for curiosity’s sake and on a small scale. But soon the results promised that more labor and ex- pense bestowed upon them would in the end be well rewarded. Then he commenced the development more systematically and turned his attention to the propagation of very de- cided properties,—larger flowers, but, espe- cially, more flowers on the same stem, and next to that, all those characteristics which would give more rapid development and a larger re- productive power. Some bulbs which, when starting the experiment, produced only five or six bulbs, were forced by crossing with more fertile species and a careful selection to double the number of bulbs, while at the same time, the bulbs were increased in size and threw out stronger stems and fuller flowers. “But what was the most remarkable was the shortening of the duration of life, from seed to seed, as it is called. I mean the num- ber of years which a seedling requires before it blossoms and produces seed. It is clear how much this includes. If. after every crossing there elapse four or five years before the result may be judged by the one flower, all that time 74 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY must be given to its care and cultivation, but by the use of the first flowering seedlings in crossing, the duration of life from seed to seed is cut in two, so that after two or three years new crossings will be ready for him to pass judgment upon them. Almost all of the long California summer we may now have the amaryllis in flower. The flowers reach a diam- eter of twenty to twenty-five centimeters in different varieties, with flower leaves over- lapping one another with their broad edges. The colors and figures compare with the best European kinds, while a strong- built plant, an easy handling and rapid multiplication make it a very desirable garden plant. It is the aim to make it one of the most common plants which will find its place in parks and at sum- mer resorts, in city gardens and around the farmer’s dwelling. “Endeavors to cross the amaryllis with the related Crinums are started, and from what I saw of them, the first trials were crowned with success. The Crinum Americanum is a wild plant from the Florida swamps which proved its fitness for crossing. At the same time a number of other species were raised for the 15 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE same purpose (of crossing). These were more tender and came from more tropical regions. Some, Burbank was even obliged to keep in his hothouse, but, when crossed with the garden amaryllis, they gave hybrids which felt at home in the California climate.” De Vries, in concluding this part of his comment, again referred to the means which Mr. Burbank has made use of to shorten the duration of life from seed to seed, noting that “many a tree or shrub with us (in Europe) only commences blossoming when it is ten or fifteen years old,” a great obstacle especially when repeated crossings are necessary. He then calls attention to the means which Mr. Burbank has utilized, threefold in character: “The selection of California, with its beauti- ful climate; the selection of the first flowering seedlings, and his method of grafting.” He then describes Mr. Burbank’s method of hurrying hybrids forward with great rapidity by grafting upon a vast scale, as elsewhere described. Down through long rows of green beds where plants of many kinds are under test, showing in the gradations from the small, 76 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY weak ones up to the strong and large growths the endless marvel of selection, the eye wan- ders, meeting a novelty at every foot until, at last, it rests upon a plot of ground perhaps fifty feet square wherein are growing two thousand of the most marvelous plants that ever were seen since the world began. This plot or bed of ground contains the new hybrid poppies upon which Mr. Burbank has been working for many years. The chief crosses have been between the oriental poppy, Pa- paver orientale, a perennial, and the opium poppy, Papaver somnifcrum, a short-lived annual. Out of these crosses came the bed of poppies, no two of the whole two thousand alike. In the foliage especially, and also in the blossoms to a lesser extent, nearly every order of plants known appears. The leaves are a source of intense interest as a study for a botanist or plant-breeder, presenting remark- able combinations of old forms with pro- duction of entirely new ones. The object of making this great crossing was far more than reached—the results were richer than could have been expected. Sci- entifically interesting in a marked degree as 77 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE it was,—some of the plants bearing great quantities of seeds but no flowers, some bear- ing beautiful flowers in great profusion but not a single seed, some bearing seeds and flowers arranged in the most fantastic shapes with flowers surrounding the seed-capsules and vice versa, and some curious ones bearing neither seeds nor flowers,— yet the experi- ment proved still more interesting to the layman from the point of view of the adorn- ment of the world. For among all the won- derful improvements in floral life which Mr. Burbank has effected, it is doubtful if any one of them has shown what might be termed such spectacular beauty. His creations are each so individually characteristic and beauti- ful that they are not easily to be compared, but the poppy results certainly may be desig- nated as among the most magnificent. But look a little later upon this bed of poppies, and even the strangeness of the new life in seed-capsule and leaf is overshadowed in interest by the splendid blossoms them- selves. They are now a mass of crimson and black and white, with many intermediate blendings. So huge the blossoms, so wide 78 Wild Arizona potatoes used in breeding to give strength and hardiness to the common potato THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY the mass of color, it is as though some great painter of the world itself had stopped on his way over this fair valley, forgetful of the rest of the earth, and here had fairly exhausted his brush. The blossoms are from eight to ten inches in diameter. Place seven of them side by side in a vertical row, they are as tall as a tall man,—eight of them measure the height of a giant. A man could hide behind a dozen. Individually, the flowers have all the beauty of their ancestors, only enhanced. Effective in interior house adornment, taken in the mass out-of-doors, they present magnifi- cent decorative possibilities. All this is made still more significant because of the fact that most of the new species are perpetual bloom- ers, lasting throughout the entire season instead of two or three weeks at the outside, as is the case of other poppies. They are perennials, also. With this new poppy a commanding figure enters upon floral life. Something of the remarkable character of the work which Mr. Burbank does is seen in his ability to take a single one of these new poppy seed-capsules, divide it into four sec- 79 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE tions and, by pollinating each section, produce from one section an annual plant, from an- other a perennial, from the third quarter crimson poppies, from the fourth, white ones. In another experiment Mr. Burbank has produced a blue poppy, a blossom unknown to the world before. Strangely interesting, also, is a new poppy now under process of development, which promises to become a notable addition to this varied family. It is the result of the union of the Papaver pilosum, and the Papaver somniferum of the variety known as the “Bride” poppy. The first named is a delicate flower, the general color being a dull orange, with white center. The second is pure white, the seed-capsule in the center a shade of green. The first one has smooth-edged petals, the white one heavily laciniated ones. The child of the two is a fire-red or scarlet with purple at the base of the petals, a most strik- ing flower. It has rejected the smooth edges of one parent and adopted the irregular lacin- iations, or fringe, of the white parent. The divisions of the fringe of the new poppy are wider than those of the parent, though the 80 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY incisions are not so deep. Its foliage is wholly different from that of either parent. The Pilosum is of solid color throughout its petals, as is the other parent, the offspring presenting a combination of purple and scarlet as noted. As one studies more into this line of his experimentation, the wonder grows steadily,— the possibilities of what he may yet accom- plish in this one branch seem limitless; for, aside from the production of the strange forms which appear in the foliage of the new pop- pies, and the development of the great poppy itself which stands apart among flowers, he has done what might well be called the impossible: he has changed the native Cali- fornia poppy from gold to crimson. Many acts has this man done which savor of the miraculous, none more marvelous than this. Once, when he was looking over a field of these gorgeous flowers that cover the Cali- fornia hills and roadsides in the early summer as with a splendid mantle of gold, he discov- ered one blossom which bore a faint trace of crimson, a slender line along down its yellow satin chalice. It was a strange stain of Nature. She had done her work well to place this odd 81 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE note of color where it would fall under the eye of the man who has scrutinized her as others have never done. Instantly he isolated the plant, transplanted it, watched it with jealous care. Its seeds were saved and planted. Some of the flowers which came upon the plants from these seeds showed a similar line of red slightly widened. Again the crop of seeds from these new plants, now much more numerous, was planted, and a far larger har- vest of blossoms was produced. Some of them were true to their ancestral forms of life and nodded their pure yellow heads in saucy defiance. They paid sadly for their temerity, for all of them were rejected. Others had still more pronounced hints of the crimson, and these were selected for further plant- ing. So on and on the test went for years, each successive generation showing stronger tendencies toward the end desired, as the petals grew more and more crimson. At last the end was reached, the yellow poppy haa become a deep lustrous red; it was hard by the land of miracles. From certain quarters,—so curious the inconsistency of man,—came up more or less 82 THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY violent protests against this act,—the golden poppy, was it not the adopted flower of the state of gold? And here was this worker of miracles changing it to crimson and robbing the state of its most distinctive and character- istic adornment! But Mr. Burbank met the protest with a gentle smile, and the poppies go on their gorgeous way embossing the Cali- fornia hillsides, gold upon green in high relief, like the ornaments of some mighty shield, while the crimson poppy which has been so gently stolen from their midst is returned to the world again for the adornment of the gardens of many lands. Many other striking varieties are developing in the midst of all the crossings thus secured, exhibiting all manner of combinations of crim- son and gold. But Mr. Burbank does not attempt the enlargement of a flower just for the sake of making it bigger than some other flower, or even that it may be called bigger than any of its ancestors. Bigness, as such, has no cham- pion in him. He makes a flower larger than its ancestors when that flower has certain characteristics which make increased size 83 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE desirable. A lesser man might, with the same power in his hands, breed flowers merely to be huge without regard to the flower’s plan in nature or the fitness of things. Not so with Mr. Burbank. He has as great a delight in intensifying the color or deepening the fra- grance of a violet as he has in making some flower with distinct decorative possibilities more noble of bloom. He might, through years of selection, produce, no doubt, a violet much larger in size then any now known, but he would as soon think of preserving some ugly monstrosity of plant life as of thus disturbing the life habit of one of the most exquisite of flowers. Deeper tones to the violet, yes; greater luxuriance of growth, wider zones of cultiva- tion, greater hardiness, intenser even if subtler perfume, yes; but abnormality, never. The whole scheme of his treatment of floral life embraces harmony and symmetry. He would round it out when it is angular, make it more graceful when it is awkward, deepen and vary its fragrancies without making them oppressive. No man who has ever lived has laid out such a scheme for the adornment of the world, indeed it may fairly 84 Potatoes growing upon a tomato vine after grafting upon the potato root THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY be stated that not all the plant-breeders who have preceded him have ever done so much to ennoble floral life. And the future holds pos- sibilities to be still more clearly indicated when his new creations, many of which are but just coming into general use, shall be uni- versal. Years have been necessary in his tests to bring the flowers up to their high estate, and years more will elapse before all the tests under way will be completed, but enough has already been done to alter the whole floral life of the world. Those who were fortunate enough to see the magnificent display of cannas at the Pan-American Exposition in the city of Buffalo,— the “Tarrytown” canna, one of Mr. Burbank’s creations,—could form some idea of the grander possibilities of his new flowers; and at the exposition in St. Louis the first prize for bedding roses, a rose which has limitless possibilities for exterior decoration, was a rose created by Mr. Bur- bank. But the more magnificent creations are not more wonderful, or more important, than those which have their culmination in his glorification of the tiniest blossoms, be they those shy wild ones which open their eyes in 85 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE the depths of the cool dark forest, or those more daring ones that witchingly display their dainty brilliancy in the gardens of the town. It is his close and intimate touch with nature, united with his keen sense of the fitness of things ever manifest in all he does, that enables him to deal with these flowers quite as a painter with his landscape. He makes them not only in a certain beau- tiful sense interpret his own thoughts, giving to the world in the completed whole that which he has long been planning in his own brain, but he fits them unerringly into their natural place. It is, if you will, the blending of the artisan and the artist. CHAPTER V THE POTATO AND THE POMATO Lp eeerey in line with many of what may be called the commercial achieve- ments of Mr. Burbank,—though these are no less wonderful than those which have had a more esthetic bearing,—is his work in the production of the potato. It was this vegeta- ble, as has elsewhere been noted, which originally brought Mr. Burbank’s name into prominence, and all through the years that have intervened since its creation it has had a large influence not only upon the wealth of the nations but upon the dietary of the people of many countries. Recent reports from Ire- land show that the Burbank potato bids fair to redeem that long-distressed island from famine, because of its ability to withstand the diseases which have destroyed other varieties. For many years Mr. Burbank has been at work upon new varieties of potatoes. Even though the one that bears his name has 87 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE proven so successful, he has not hesitated to set about producing improved ones, the possi- bilities of the potato for doing better and still better service to the world being unusually pronounced. With this end in view, he has gathered varieties, both wild and tame, from many different countries, making from them a bewildering number of crosses and combina- tions. Some of them are curious in character, as, for example, the snake potato, a crescent- shaped type from South America about three inches long and a little over half an inch thick in its largest part. The wild potato from Ari- zona has a most peculiar form. One would never believe it to be a potato. In shape and general appearance it is a large-sized raisin. Some of the potatoes of this variety are dark reddish brown in color, some lighter, but all have the distinctive shrunken look. and shape of the raisin. Such wild potatoes as this form valuable adjuncts to the work. Very often a wild strain of blood supplies Mr. Burbank just the needed element to make a weak race powerful. ‘It was Emerson, whom Mr. Burbank most de- lights to quote, who said one day on this point: 88 THE POTATO AND THE POMATO “The city is recruited from the country. In the year 1805, it is said, every legitimate mon- arch in Europe was imbecile. The city would have died out, rotted and exploded, long ago but that it was reinforced from the fields. It is only country that came to town day before yesterday, that is city and court today.” Some of the potatoes which are hurried for- ward in the greenhouse are very interesting because of their size. Perhaps a hundred. of them, so small are they, may be held in a child’s hand, and all of them perfect potatoes and all differing in color, size and shape. One new potato which has proven most toothsome is beautifully colored throughout all its flesh. The color is a magenta approaching crimson, so distributed that: when the potato is cut open, no matter from what angle, it presents most interesting figures, some conventional, some severely geometric, some having a start- ling likeness to human and animal faces. Mr. Burbank says that an erroneous opinion prevails that the potato has a tendency to die out, or run out, as the phrase is, in various countries. He says this apparent running out of a given variety is generally due to the intro- 89 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE duction of better varieties which slowly but surely supplant the old ones. He makes note of the fact, too, that the seed-ball of the potato is less and less often found now upon the common varieties, due to the fact that the tuber of the potato itself is used in planting exclusively. The continued disuse of any organ in a plant, as in an animal, tends to its weakening and final extinction. He notes among plants which have gradually passed through the same experience the sugar-cane, banana, horse-radish, sweet potato and others. Thousands of new potatoes are being bred by Mr. Burbank in the midst of his new tests in the search for better stock. Very much of this is begun in the hothouse, in order to save time. Selection here goes on upon an elaborate scale, but, important as it always is in this production of plants specifically valuable com- mercially as well as those for adornment alone, selection is not less important, in a commer- cial production, than a knowledge of the needs of the various parts of the world to which the new production is to go. Here lie some of the most important problems in all Mr. Burbank’s work, the solution calling for the widest pos- 90 THE POTATO AND THE POMATO ” *” sible knowledge. He studies a thousand and one phases of the subject whenever he projects a new creation. He must know the conditions . under which old varieties have been produced and their life history; he must know the character of the soil, the length of season, the climatic conditions, the markets, and their de- mands. He never produces a new fruit or vegetable without taking clearly into account all these practical bearings. This adds enor- mously to the sum of all his labor, but it is precisely this which has made his creations so successful — he knows not only how to create but how to fit and adapt. This suggests some- thing of the tremendous demands made upon Mr. Burbank in the prosecution of a work of such great magnitude and of so diverse a character. So these new potatoes are being bred to suit all sorts of climate and soils. But there is another and vitally important phase of the work, the changing of the potato itself — making it over into a far richer vege- table than it has ever been before. Just as corn may be bred, and is being bred, to pro- duce a required per cent of a given element, so 91 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE a potato may be bred to increase or decrease its chief characters. The average potato is composed of about seventy-five per cent water and twenty-five per cent dry matter. This latter is, broadly speaking, composed of starch, protein and fat; though these two latter elements are present in but small quan- tities, the main body of the dry matter being the starch. In the growing potato vine there is a very large proportion of starch, larger than either rice or corn, approximately eighty per cent. Before considering the immediate plans of Mr. Burbank in the improvement of the po- tato as a table food, it will be of interest to show something of the practical bearing of his work upon the manufacturing possibilities of the potato in the line of starch. The seventy-five per cent of the potato which con- sists of water may, from the manufacturing point of view, be considered as largely waste, or, if not waste, at least of no commercial value. Very much of this waste may be re- stored, negatively speaking, by driving out the water and putting starch in its place. Mr. Burbank’s investigations have shown that it is 92 quyjd oywuoy v uodn payers uo oyejod v uodu Sutmosd saoyejod jeuay THE POTATO AND THE POMATO as easy to breed potatoes for a larger amount of starch as it is to breed for any other charac- teristic — flavor, resistance to disease, with- standing drought, adaptability to a given climate, early or late maturing, and so on. If in his experiments he develops a potato which has twenty-five per cent more starch than the normal potato,—though even a larger amount is possible,—the result is of marked importance from the point of view of the manufacturer. The value of the average annual production of potatoes in the United States is now, approximately, one hundred millions of dollars. In round numbers the United States produces each year about ten million dollars’ worth of starch. The chief sources of supply for this starch are Indian corn and potatoes. Of the four main uses to which starch is put,—for the laundry, for the manufacture of glucose, for edible purposes, and for use in the textile arts,—corn, in the United States, supplies the main portion of the first two. In Europe the potato is practically the main source of starch supply. Potato starch is of much importance to the manufacturer of cottons, woolens, silks and 93 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE linens, as sizing for the warp before it is woven; for finishing the goods after they have been woven, bleached and dyed, and, in the form of dextrine, as a thickener or vehicle for applying the colors to a fabric. The dex- trine, or British gum, is used a great deal also in the manufacturing of mucilages. But the potatoes in use for starch manufac- ture in the United States are very often poor in quality, made up of culls, immature tubers, or those injured in digging and sold as waste. The starch is quite likely also to be low in grade and lacking in uniformity, greatly vary- ing from day to day. Still, notwithstanding this, for use in textile arts, the potato starch commands nearly double the price of corn starch. Attempts have been made to increase the supply of starch by the use of fertilizers, but Mr. Burbank’s plan is better than this, for it begins with the source of the supply itself and works directly upon the starch in the plant, as is the case in the breeding of corn for a larger starch-content. The potatoes which show a somewhat larger amount of starch are selected for further testing, and here again the supreme 94 THE POTATO AND THE POMATO importance of selection is shown, each suc- ceeding generation having an increase of the desired characteristic over the former. Nearly twelve millions of dollars are in- vested in the United States alone in the manufacture of starch. With twenty-five per cent of starch-content added to a given thou- sand pounds of potatoes, there being no attendant increase in the cost of manufacture, the economic importance of breeding for starch becomes apparent. In Europe the matter has received much attention, and efforts have been made to increase the amount of starch. Along with the increase in starch supply which Mr. Burbank makes available for the whole world simply by an intelligent following of the lines he has laid down, comes increase in productivity, for he is able to unite these two characteristics in the same plant. In the production of alcohol for manufactur- ing purposes the potato is coming more and more into favor. The starch is converted into maltose by the diastase of malt, the maltose being easily acted upon by ferment for the actual production of the alcohol. An increase 95 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE in the starch-content of the potato for this manufacture is particularly desirable. But important as this breeding of potatoes is from a manufacturing point of view, it is still more important as a means of food sup- ply. The great value of the potato as a food lies in its being a concentrated food, supplying both heat and energy, though needing the foods rich in protein to make up a model bal- anced ration. Mr. Burbank is now making over the potato. He long ago saw its possibilities, and only the tremendous demands of other ex- periments upon him have prevented the com- pletion of the work. He will leave the potato, when he is done with it, a far more impor- tant feature of the world’s supply of food than it has ever been before. Already enough has been accomplished in the preliminary test, to foreshadow the end. He has had four main objects in view in the work: A potato with a better flavor, one with a relatively larger amount of sugar, one that will be of a larger size and all of the same uniform shape and size, and one that will better resist disease and be a larger yielder than any potato now known. 96 THE POTATO AND THE POMATO While he is working with all these factors in view, and gradually bringing the potatoes under test up to the standard he has set for each, he is perhaps more deeply interested in the production of a better flavored potato than in almost any of the other features, important though they are. He holds that it is highly important in the production of a new fruit or vegetable to make it preéminently palatable, for, in the last analysis, it is palatability that decides the permanence of any new food. If palatability be eliminated as a factor, then mankind is prone to consider the food,—no matter what its form or character,—a medi- cine, to be taken because it produces certain necessary results. He has long been working, and with satisfactory results, to breed more sugar into the potato as one element of pala- tability so that when cooked it will present a far more satisfactory flavor. Several of the new varieties now under test have already shown a delightful advance in this respect over older varieties. The question of size is also important, and Mr. Burbank is giving to the potatoes uniformity so that they will be more satisfactory for shipping. The old-fashioned ot NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE potatoes varied much in a given hill, rendering them unsatisfactory for marketing without selection. Mr. Burbank will obviate this by making them all practically of the same size. Uniformity will also be more satisfactory for cooking purposes. While the potato and the tomato are very closely allied in family ties, being, indeed, not far separated blood relation, they are as far apart as the poles when it comes to any satis- factory amalgamation. Mr. Burbank has found many similarly strange instances where two plants which, by all the probabilities, should be the very ones to be most hospitable to each other, utterly refuse to join. But some very remarkable results developed in his attempts to cross the two. For ex- ample, he has produced tomatoes from the seeds of plants pollinated from potato pollen only. He has produced what he has aptly called “aérial potatoes,” most peculiar in form, growing on a Burbank potato vine grafted on a Ponderosa tomato plant. These open-air potatoes are of many different shapes and sizes, as well as colors. Some of them assume gro- tesque forms and appear quite like little pigs. 98 A rare two-petaled hybrid seedling lily THE POTATO AND THE POMATO Reversing this act, he grafted the same kind of tomato plant upon the same kind of potato plant and produced, underground, a strange- looking potato with marked tomato character- istics. Two distinct species of tomatoes were crossed, producing an exceedingly interesting ornamental plant about twelve inches high by fifteen inches across. It has remarkably at- tractive and unusual leaves and compact clus- ters of uniform globular fruit, the whole presenting a unique appearance. In this connection Mr. Burbank suggests the possi- bilities for the development of the tomato on the part of amateur and commercial plant breeders— opportunities for the developing of tomatoes with greater nutrition, more _pal- atable, and with better keeping and canning qualities being pronounced. He looks upon the tomato as a desirable vegetable as it stands, but as one which by no manner of means has been brought up to its proper plane. But important as is the work of Mr. Bur- bank in potato culture, both in the production of the world-famous potato which bears his name and in the large tests now under way in 99 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE the transformation of this vegetable, it appears probable that it will be rivaled, even if it is not surpassed, by the new fruit which grows upon the potato which he has named the “po- mato.” Among all his many interesting and novel creations this certainly takes high rank, not only for its novelty but for its practical value. Looking to the common origin of the tomato and the potato, and considering the general appearance of the new fruit, he has happily combined the two names in designat- ing this new creation. The pomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, though growing upon a vegetable. It is what might be termed the evolution of a potato seed-ball. It first appears as a tiny green ball upon the potato top, and develops as the sea- son progresses into a fruit the size and general shape of a small tomato. The flesh is white, bearing, usually, a few small seeds. It is de- lightful to the taste, having the suggestion of quite a number of different fruits and yet not easily identified as any particular one. It may be eaten either raw or cooked. It is fine eaten raw out of hand, delicious when cooked, and excellent as a preserve. 100 CHAPTER VI THE LILIES @y URELY, since the world began, Nature never presented a stranger spectacle than that seen several years ago on Mr. Bur- bank’s proving grounds at Sebastopol, when a hundred thousand seedling hybrid lilies were in blossom at the same time. And never before did so vast a volume of perfume,— there is no other figure to express it,—rise toward the summer sky. So intense was the fragrance that ranchmen a mile away could distinctly detect it, while all the country round about and the little town that lies at the entrance to this wondrous place was saturated with the odor. It was a strange composite fragrance, too, a thousand scents blended into one ; for with the tens upon tens of thousands of different lilies came not only a well-nigh infinite variety of flower, but an indescribably rare and complex odor unlike anything the world had known before. 101 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE A visitor to the lily-testing grounds at Sebastopol, Mr. Charles Howard Shinn, in a newspaper article printed at the time, spoke thus of the general effect: “This great mass of a hundred thousand lilies in full bloom, on a California hillside, in mid-June, surrounded by orchards, wheat fields and fringes of forest, is peculiarly enchanting. As one approaches, the golden, orange and red tints which predominate, mingled with various shades of green, produce the effect of some huge product of Oriental looms. Little by little, as one draws closer, the colors sepa- rate, and widely diverse types of flowers are seen to be growing side by side. One finds lily stems varying in height from six inches to nine feet, all bearing open flowers. Some plants have many stems, others but one, and a few present stems with distinct branches like the branches of a tree. Flowers, leaves, stems and roots show every conceivable varia- tion. The biologist would find material for a volume in this lily field. © “Some lilies have but one petal, rolled like a cigar and half-open like the broader end of acypripedium. Others have two petals spread- 102 THE LILIES ing apart like wings. Others, again, have three or four or five’ petals. The great bulk, how- ever, have the normal six. The variation in color is extreme, ranging from white to dark purple, through surprising changes of com- binations. The methods of growth are equally curious. Many stems bear all the flowers at the top, almost level, a new system for lilies, and especially useful in garden grouping. One such plant two and a half feet high carries fifty-six flowers. A tall spike of golden brown lilies, of L. Humboldtu type, carries ninety-one flowers and is four feet high. “In form, size, color, fragrance, this field of hybridized lily flowers is a revelation. There is certainly nothing like it elsewhere in America, and I do not know of any place in Europe where such a collection can be found. We came out of the field yellow and brown from head to foot with lily pollen.” Comparatively little had been done by any one to treat lily culture in a broad manner, until Mr. Burbank took it up;—certainly no one had ever attempted it upon such a gigan- tic scale as this. The lily was recognized as an exceedingly difficult plant upon which to 103 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE work, and, while possibilities were admitted, it was shunned because of the obstacles in the way. Many had pronounced it incapable of any satisfactory hybridization. To one of Mr. Burbank’s temperament the very fact that possibilities were promised in the face of difficulties made the outlook all the more attractive; for he had found that in nature, as well as in all departments of endeavor, the things which are most easy of accomplishment quite often are the least desirable; those which are the most difficult, the ones which yield the most important results. But here, as in so many departments, he had a distinct and commanding advantage over all others in the magnitude of the work. He had also the advantage of a superb climate and soil where lilies from different zones could meet upon a common congenial plane and where each one would be at its best. The lilies showed an unusual tendency to depart from their former life habits. Sports or abnormalities were very common. Some of them were valueless, save as curious _testi- monials to the eccentricities of Nature when her life forces are disturbed and have not yet 104 THE LILIES had time to adjust themselves; some had distinct value in the promise they made of greater things. Such as had a prophecy of some new and desirable trait,—added vigor, greater hardiness, adaptability, unusual form, or great beauty,—were preserved, and work upon them has steadily progressed. Nearly fifty different kinds of lilies were chosen from widely separated parts of the world. These were planted, and from the blossoms elaborate crossings by pollination were made through a series of years. The work was mainly done by means of the finger- tips, with a watch-crystal or small saucer to hold the pollen. It was what might be called pollination by wholesale; it had never been equaled in extent before. For several years this work proceeded, until Mr. Burbank was planting several pounds of seed per year. At last there were enough plants to begin the great test, and a hundred thousand of them were transplanted to the proving grounds at Sebastopol. Here they occupied two acres of ground. In the carrying forward of the work more than a million lily bulbs had been produced 105 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE up to this time, and a vast number have since been grown. In strangeness of form these lilies rivaled anything Mr. Burbank has ever produced. For example, one seedling from a native wild California lily which grows only ten inches high produced all the way from twenty to forty blossoms on each of the short stalks put forth, whereas the usual number was from three to eight. One small dwarf lily, the result of a cross, bore twenty-eight flowers; while another, a branching lily with eight stems coming from one bulb, bore over two hundred buds and flowers. One plant of this cross showed thirty-seven stems. Speaking of the curiously interesting vari- ations in flower, plant and bulb, Mr. Burbank says: “One blossom is white; another pale straw or creamy white with thick recurving, chan- neled petals, studded with numerous papille with light yellow anthers; another is _per- fectly green throughout in appearance, very much resembling a trillium in form and general character; some are tigridia- like; others open their petals in such curious 106 THE LILIES manner that the flowers resemble sprekelias in form; some are crimson or yellow or darkest orange- yellow, with leopard spots or plain. Many grow six to eight feet high, others only six to eight inches. About one- fifth are fragrant, some slightly, others power- fully so. Some bear only two or three flowers to each stalk, while others have twenty to fifty or more. The leaves are broad or narrow, long or short, light green or dark green, and some beautifully striped with white. Some varieties have branching stems. “The bulbs are almost as much of a study as the flowers. Some have flat, thin, open scales like a rose or clematis flower ; others have close, thick, incurved scales, some many- jointed, others entire and some crenated; a few with pink or red bulbs,—but oftener yellow, orange or white—some of them being nearly globular, others conical or flat. Some throw out numerous long moniliform, underground runners. Some varieties have a tendency to start early, others late.” The calla was bred for larger size, combined with strength of stalk and great beauty, a blossom being produced at last nearly a foot 107 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE across. When carried in the other direction, a perfect calla was made not more than an inch and a half in diameter and perfect in every detail. Another calla was bred having handsome golden variegated leaves, in interesting contrast with the leaves which formerly had borne white spots. Before this great work, the common garden calla had had no odor, or, at best, only a faint and rather disagreeable one. As Mr. Burbank was examining a series of calla seedlings, he detected one which bore a fra- grance with the hint of violets and the sugges- tion, too, of the water-lily. This calla was isolated and bred for its perfume. Rigid selection and exclusion followed, and little by little the perfume was increased and _ intensi- fied until at last it was fixed, a rare and delightful attribute. The new flower also grew in marked profusion, and blossomed earlier than the calla from which it has been bred. Upon the general subject of new lilies, Mr. Burbank says: “Twenty-six years ago I began to cross our native Pacific Coast lilies, adding from time to time all the exotic species and varieties 108 THE LILIES which seemed to promise favorable results, until my collection was the most extensive in the world. These have been combined and selected, and recombined and reselected, until the most important results ever achieved among lilies are now an embodied fact. Of some of the older hybrids and seedlings I have as many as a thousand bulbs of each variety and have also half a million kinds yet to un- fold their petals for the first time, and am still planting from one to three pounds of hybridized lily seed every season. The best of the world’s lily experts who visited my grounds decided that there were at least two hundred and fifty thousand lilies which were distinct hybrids among the millions of lilies then blooming on my grounds. “Can my thoughts be imagined, after so many years of patient care and labor, as, walk- ing among them on a dewy morning, I look upon these new forms of beauty, on which other eyes have never gazed? Here a plant six feet high with bright yellow flowers, beside it one only six inches high with darkest red flowers, and, further on, one of pale straw, or snowy white, or with curious dots and shad- 109 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE ings; some deliciously fragrant, others faintly so; some with upright, others with nodding flowers; some with dark green, woolly leaves in whorls, or with polished, light green, lance- like, scattered leaves. “As the fresh, dew-laden petals of these new creations, which had never been spread out to the light of day, were unrolled before me, a new world of beauty seemed to have been found and a full recompense for all the care bestowed upon them. “The bulbs are a study, and had not some of them been in value ten times greater than their weight in gold, photographs would have been obtained to show their peculiar forms. Nearly all these new lilies are crosses from parent species selected for vigor, hardiness, easy management and rapid multiplication, as well as fragrance, beauty of coloring, grace and abundance of flowers. In these hybrids a broad foundation has been laid for endless variations which will reward lovers of flowers for ages to come.” The development of the various lilies is going on under Mr. Burbank’s direction upon a still more extensive scale. 110 pavnpoad suunyd PNY MoU alvI-y ‘jooude JSAIVI OY} JO UO | XLULITD., ALT ayy pue wnyd ay} wos poyvado yoound ayy, CHAPTER VII PLUMS AND PRUNES ia would be difficult to reach a satisfactory estimate of the amount Mr. Burbank’s commercial creations have already added to the world’s wealth. This is particularly diffi- cult both because of the rapid progression of a new fruit through multiplication in different lands, replacing old fruits of its kind season by season, and because of the large number of varieties in his list, each one filling a sepa- rate field. For example, he has introduced over twenty varieties of plums and _ prunes, each with some distinctive and valuable char- acteristic, while he has made several thousand new plum and prune combinations, many of which are now under test. The potato which bears his name has increased the wealth of the United States by many millions of dollars, but the new plums and prunes promise to exert a still wider commercial and economic influence. One entire town in California, 111 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE for example, has been built up very largely upon one or two of his plums. The plums introduced by a few trees in a region which was by nature and climate suited to them rapidly increased as growers saw their good points, until they became the center of a packing and shipping industry employing thousands of people in the growing and preparation of the fruit. Something of the wide-reaching influence of the new plums is seen in the fact that several of them are now being extensively cultivated on the island of Borneo, supplant- ing largely the native fruits of this type and promising to revolutionize the fruit culture of the island. They are also shipped from Borneo to surrounding countries. The late Cecil Rhodes became so much interested in the work of Mr. Burbank that he ordered some plum grafts for his extensive fruit ranch near Cape Town. One day several years afterward, a consignment of the plums which grew from these cuttings was shipped 18,000 miles by steamer and rail from Cape Town to San Francisco, as a test, arriving after their long journey in prime condition. From many 112 PLUMS AND PRUNES other points, particularly in Europe, have come testimonials from those who have intro- duced various of Mr. Burbank’s plums, all the more significant because the stock was bought not of him but of some dealer to whom in other years Mr. Burbank had sold the original stock. His letter files are full of the heartiest thanks from American fruit-raisers for having made plums and prunes which have very greatly increased their revenues. One man enumerated the following points about a plum he had bought of Mr. Burbank, and his esti- mate of the fruit may be taken as the conden- sation of hundreds of letters: 1. A more rapid grower. 2. An earlier bearer. 3. An earlier ripener. 4. Larger fruit. 5. Richer in sugar. 6. Its great size gives it a distinct commercial value over others. a The new plums and prunes have been pro- | duced both by crossing and by selection of seedlings. Sometimes six or even more plums are combined in crossing to get just the char- acteristic desired. In other cases, the new plum has come from the seed. Hundreds of thousands of the pits are planted and, out of the young trees which grow, the most 113 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE promising ones are chosen for grafting. ‘These are grafted upon older trees, scores of them, perhaps, on a single tree, and all showing variations of leaf and fruit, presenting a curi- ous and striking appearance as they develop upon the same parent tree. As the grafts develop fruit the choicest ones are saved for further testing in order that, out of hundreds of thousands originally planted as seed, only the very best may be eventually saved. Color and size of leaf, shape of branch, size, color and taste of fruit, general appearance as to hardiness and thrift, prolificness,—all these and other points Mr. Burbank has under con- sideration as he makes his selections from season to season in his search for the best of all. Selection here, as in the production of his flowers, is imperative,—always the best froar the best. The production of a new plum is not lightly to be entered upon, particularly when the scale of the work is that of Mr. Burbank’s. First there must be a definite pattern, so to speak, in mind. If prevailing types of plums lack symmetry of form or beauty of color, the new plum must be planned to supply these 114 PLUMS AND PRUNES deficiencies. If present plums are too small, larger ones must be made; if bearing scantily, more prolific ones; if injured by early frosts and adaptable only to certain regions, then a hardening of fruit and tree and an expansion of the zone of culture. Or it may be that the aim is to make a plum which assembles all these essentials in itself. To accomplish all of this is not the work of a day nor a year, perhaps not of a decade. Very often the whole world will be searched for a plum which has one certain characteristic essential to the building of the plum under process. It may be, too, that when this for- eign plum is found, apparently filling all the requirements, it may turn out no better than, perhaps not so good as, some plum of domes- tic growth. The mental pattern is made just as real and definite as the pattern of an in- ventor or the model of a sculptor. If the inventor, as his work advances, discovers some new feature which will make the invention more valuable, he will be quick to make use of it; and even the sculptor, in modeling his clay, may be in no small measure influenced by the living model before him. But even 115 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE more may the plant-breeder be influenced by change, for, as in any one of the new plums upon which Mr. Burbank is working, some new trait of surpassing excellence may develop wholly independent of his original plan. At the best, the metal or the wood of the in- ventor is only metal or wood, the clay of the sculptor is only clay; but the material upon which Mr. Burbank works is throbbing with life, as truly life, even if a lower order, as the life of the man who handles it—life that is some- times wayward, sometimes stubborn, some- times bursting forth in surpassing beauty or strength in lines never dreamed of, sometimes manifesting itself in ways spectacular, indeed even dramatic. All the time, while holding te his pattern, he must be on the lookout fer important departures. There are three vital points, in addition to many minor ones, which Mr. Burbank con- siders in the gathering of material upon which to build a new plum: 1. He must have at the base a hardy plum, wild or tarne; for, without endurance, the preduct might be practically worthless. 2. He must have the best possible plum as 116 OM] ANYYO oud jo ssulppoaas rn SOTO jana | OMI OUT, tunyd ony jo quod ANOp OU, PLUMS AND PRUNES regards richness of food product; for, without this, his new plum would soon be detected by the public and cast out as an impostor. 3. He must have the most attractive-look- ing plum obtainable; for man delights to have. beautiful fruit on his table; indeed, who shall say how large a part it plays with his digestion ? So, in general, these three basic points must be considered, in addition to many others, in making the ideal plum. In a somewhat con- tradictory sense Mr. Burbank has made a good many ideal plums, each one having some attribute in addition to the essentials and thereby causing it to be peculiarly distinctive. For example, he has bred one plum with a delicious fragrance, so powerful that when left in a closed room over night the whole apart- ment will be delightfully saturated with the odor. Another plum has not only the essen- tials but it has a flavor wholly distinct from the plum, in fact it is not to be distinguished from the Bartlett pear. So marked is this characteristic that when one of the foremost fruiterers of the world tasted the plum blind- folded, not knowing what manner of fruit he 117 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE was eating, he pronounced it unquestionably the finest Bartlett pear he had ever tasted. Stranger still, as the plum developed, the tree has taken on much of the character of the Bartlett pear tree in leaf and structure, though why no one can tell, for it has never had the slightest pear tree blood in its veins. Still another plum was developed which showed phenomenal bearing qualities, while also being otherwise excellent. It was so tremendously prolific, so to use the words, that its very fecundity stood in its way. Thus, wherever grown, hired “strippers,” as they are called, must be engaged to go into the or- chards when the fruit is green and strip the branches of all but just enough plums satis- factorily to mature. From a single tree by actual count 22,000 plums were enough even then being left on the tree to yield an abundant harvest. Another plum which was made over to order, so to speak, has been almost similarly prolific. It was a small, dull-colored, bitter, wild plum, the American beach plum, unfit to sat unless cooked. It was a remarkable plum in many ways, growing on almost any 118 PLUMS AND PRUNES soil, frequently in places rejected by all other vegetation. It would grow on sandy soil or heavy clay soil, on desert-like places, and on soil which now and then is submerged by the sea. It would grow in the drought as well as in seasons of rain. In fruit it was remarkably prolific, though the fruit was worthless. The plums were not much larger than small cherries, usually less than half an inch in diam- eter, the pit being relatively large and sur- rounded by a thin layer of bitter meat. There were quite a good many varieties, some ripening early, some late, and all of them very hardy as regards frost. It was. this insignificant fruit that Mr. Burbank took under his care one day, seeing its possibilities and eager to ennoble it. By the utmost care in selecting and breed- ing through a series of years, the homely little outcast has been made into a beautiful deep- purple plum, dotted with white, averaging at least three inches in circumference, without a trace of the old bitter taste in all its rich yellow meat. The new plum has all the staying qualities of the hardy little ancestor and will thrive in warm regions or frost belts, 119 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE on fertile soil or barren soil. The branches are so closely packed at bearing time that there is no room for leaves, only a solid compact mass of fruit. But a more wonderful plum than any of these has been made by Mr. Burbank, a plum without pit. This plum has not been placed upon the market because not entirely finished, though the pit has been bred out of it. For about two centuries there had been growing in France a tiny plum, so called, with only a suggestion of a pit. Mr. Burbank took this plum, bred it with other plums to increase its size and beauty, and injected into it a rich new life. Years passed by in the testing, and at last the pit of the large luscious plum which was the result of the years of breeding has disappeared. It only remains now a matter of time to breed the pits from all plums and prunes and leave in their places so much more room for rich, nutritious food. More than one skeptical person, numbering among them some prominent scientists of Europe and America, has stood beside one of the many trees which bear these stoneless plums upon Mr. Burbank’s proving grounds at Sebastopol 120 PLUMS AND PRUNES and has been asked to take his knife and cut one of the plums in two. The surprise then shown, sometimes deepening into an apparent distrust of their own senses, has been one of the most delightful and one of the most prized compliments Mr. Burbank has ever received. There are two main lines in plum life as known in the fruit-growing regions of this country, one leading to the plum proper, the other to the prune. Mr. Burbank gives this definition, which has been adopted as practi- cally covering the ground: “Any plum which will dry in the sun without spoiling is a prune.” The reason why the plums which thus become prunes take on this dried shape is because of their large sugar-content, which enables them, like raisins, to preserve them- selves, as one might say, in their own sugar. The object of Mr. Burbank has been not only to make prunes which are larger in size than the old ones, but which are relatively richer in the amount of sweetness. The prune has become one of the important items in the dietary of the nations, perhaps even more highly appreciated abroad. The 121 NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE