A VISIT TO LUTHER BURBANK. 337 



fore, necessary to combine in one plant both these negative character- 

 istics, something that experience has shown can be done. However 

 easily this is explained, still it elicits astonishment and wonder to see 

 a cactus without spines. All that is now left to be done is the cross- 

 ing with forms known as the most nutritious, and at the same time to 

 watch the development of other characteristics, especially the root 

 system. It will not take many years for Burbank's cactus to transform 

 large stretches of desert into fertile fields even without irrigation. 



Along the road in front of Burbank's house is a long row of high 

 trees with wide spreading crowns and dark foliage. These are Bur- 

 bank's first hybrids, walnuts, that are a combination of the eatable nut 

 and an ornamental tree of the same genus (Juglans regia nigra). 

 From seeds of this hybrid Burbank raised a few rows of seedlings 

 which show a surprising variety in growth and leaves. These latter 

 are all lanceolate, sometimes with broad leaflets, sometimes with nar- 

 row, some are petiolate, others sessile on the branchlets, now coarse 

 and then fine, frequently reminding one of the common English walnut, 

 and again approaching the ancestor, the black walnut. We saw some 

 of the variety of forms resulting from crossing, and from these the best 

 have to be selected for certain purposes. 



Burbank's entire garden contains only two and a half acres, while 

 the experiment farm near Sebastopol, about one hour's drive from 

 Santa Bosa, comprises twenty acres. Two days each week Burbank 

 spends on the farm, riding there on his bicycle ; the rest of the week he 

 is at home. Here are all the more delicate crossings, and it is here 

 every new experiment is started. It is only when certain definite re- 

 sults are in view and when the cultivation of thousands of specimens 

 is required that they are raised on the farm near Sebastopol. 



He showed us a bed of wild flowers in his garden. He collects these 

 in the vicinity, transplants them, selects and crosses the various forms 

 as soon as they promise anything of advantage. Others he crosses with 

 cultivated species of sufficient relationship. His idea in doing this is 

 to make a large number of garden plants, which will be so fertile, and 

 consequently so cheap as to come within the reach of any one. Briefly, 

 he wants to spread over every garden spot in California a still richer 

 treasure of flowers than it already possesses. Thus, for instance, he 

 has crossed the large and deliciously night-scented Nicotiana afiinis 

 with the wild, tree-like Nicotiana glauca, which can not be called an 

 ornamental plant on account of its greenish flowers, but by flowering 

 profusely and by having such large bunches of flowers, it offers an 

 excellent object for hybridization. We noticed several kinds of Cape 

 gooseberries (Physalis), of the blood-red Heucheras and others already 

 hybridized. The common garden poppy (Papaver somniferum) he had 



vol. lxvu. — h z 



09 



