54 Master Minds of Modern Science 



With aids to bring him the plants, he passes them on with 

 such rapidity that a hundred thousand may be decided on in a 

 single day. If all these plants had to be tested in the usual way 

 each would have to be set out by itself, each would have to be 

 cultivated and cared for for four or five years, each would need 

 to be grafted. In a single day this one man accomplished what 

 could be reached otherwise only by years of waiting and by an 

 enormous attendant expense. ... As the plants [plum seedlings] 

 came before him they were instantly separated into three classes, 

 good, mediocre, and worthless. Then all were planted to 

 decide the matter, and when they produced fruit it was found 

 that Burbank's verdict had been right in every single case. 



To Burbank, as he once said, plants had faces, and he 

 read them as easily as the head of a big business reads the 

 faces of his clerks and workmen. His judgment was 

 severe, for no plant that had not real quality or beauty 

 was allowed to survive, and every autumn the smoke 

 from many bonfires drifted across his gardens. 



Many of the achievements of Luther Burbank savour so 

 strongly of the miraculous that if he had lived three cen- 

 turies earlier he would probably have been burned at the 

 stake as a wizard. Take, for instance, his work on the 

 cactus. As we all know, the cactus is a desert plant. 

 There are many different varieties, but all are marked by 

 thick, fleshy leaves covered with the most deadly thorns, 

 by brilliant blossoms, while many bear a fruit which is 

 quite eatable, but, like the rest of the plant, covered 

 thickly with needle-like spines. The cacti thrive in 

 sandy, stony, waterless deserts where no other plant 

 except spinifex or mulga can take hold. 



Burbank began by taking away the thorns. In his 

 tamed cacti not one remains. He then took away the 

 hard, woody substance of the leaves, so that these juicy 

 leaves became good forage for oxen, horses, or mules. 

 He proceeded to breed the fruit to a perfection never 

 before dreamed of. Those who have eaten it say that it 



