Luther Burbank 57 



We have spoken of his swiftly growing walnut, but he 

 did more with the walnut than increase its speed of 

 growth. He created one with a thinner shell. So thin 

 was the shell that he found the marauding birds were 

 able to drive their beaks through it and extract the 

 kernel. This would not do, so he reversed the process 

 and bred back until he had a nut of just the right shell- 

 thickness. 



He crossed peaches and nectarines and made the 

 resulting tree yield fruit earlier than either of its parents. 

 He produced nectarines with yellow flesh and rich scarlet 

 skins which are said to be the most beautiful and perfect 

 in flavour of all the peach tribe. In all, Luther Burbank 

 produced more than two thousand entirely new varieties 

 of fruit, flowers, and vegetables, an advance without 

 parallel in the history of gardening. 



And how, you will ask, were these wonders brought 

 about? Very simply. A watchglass and a camel's-hair 

 brush were his principal instruments, these being used to 

 remove pollen from one bloom and insert it into another. 

 For the rest, genius and patience. 



" All my triumphs/' he said himself, " have been 

 gained by carefully and patiently observing the laws of 

 nature and by experiment.' ' Selection combined with 

 breeding explains the secret of his success. 



To begin with, he might breed together two separate 

 flowers in order to create what may be called a working 

 basis, sprinkling the pollen of one flower on the stigma 

 of another. The two plants might come, one from South 

 America, the other from Mongolia. Each plant had its 

 characteristics, its habits, its structure, its hereditary 

 tendencies, its own special life distinct from others, and 

 this identity the plant had preserved for thousands of 

 years. United, the two plants between them produced 

 seed, which was planted and grew. 



From these seeds might come plants resembling one of 



