4(54 BURBANK'S PRODUCTION Of- HORTICULTUFML NOVELTIES. 



they do not contain essentially different procedures. It is a most 

 interesting study to go into the details of such a comparison, espe- 

 cially since, by the same principles, he has obtained such striking 

 new results. If his work does not enlarge our knowledge of the 

 general rules, as it is not intended to do, it at least provides us with 

 such numerous illustrations that a description of his experiments, 

 even if but brief and incomplete, may be considered as a review of 

 almost the whole field of horticultural plant-breeding. 



From this point of view I shall now give a survey of Burbank's 

 work. In doing so it is not my aim to recommend his fruits or his 

 flowers. They recommend themselves, and their world-wide appre- 

 ciation gives the best proof of their high value. I am concerned 

 only with the methodological side of the work and my aim is to 

 describe such details as will best contribute to the establishment of 

 the full agreement of Burbank's experience with the agricultural 

 methods of Nilsson on the one side, and with the latest results of 

 biological investigation on the other. 



Luther Burbank was born March 7, 1849, in Lancaster, Mass. 

 His father was of English and his mother of Scotch ancestry. He 

 was reared on a New England farm and indulged in the breeding 

 of American grapes and of new potatoes, which was quite a common 

 pursuit in Massachusetts about the year 1873. He succeeded in 

 raising some new varieties of potatoes in that year, multiplied them 

 during the two succeeding summers and offered them for sale to 

 the well-known seedsmen Messrs. J. J. H. Gregory & Son at 

 Marblehead, Mass. They selected one variety among the three he 

 had offered and paid him ^ 125 for it. This happened in the sum- 

 mer of 1875, and in September of the same year Burbank left Mas- 

 sachusetts and settled at Santa Rosa, California, partly on account 

 of his health, partly on account of the bright prospects which the 

 climate of that part of California offered him for his most beloved 

 occupation, the improvement of plants. For at Santa Rosa almost 

 all the garden plants which require greenhouses in the Eastern 

 States can be cultivated in the open, and therefore on a much larger, 

 or even on an almost unlimited scale. As an instance I mention 

 the Amaryllis. 



In the beginning, Burbank rented a small nursery near Santa 

 Rosa and cultivated market flowers and small fruits, but had to look 

 for work on other farms also, in order to gain money enough for 

 maintenance. It was only after thirteen years, in 1888, that he had 

 saved enough to buy his present farm. Here he organized a large 



