BURBANK 



1001 



BURBANK 



with special force as he busied himself with 

 the cultivation of his vegetable garden that 

 only one of his potato plants bore a seed ball, 

 and it seemed reasonable to him that the off- 

 spring of this particular plant ought to show 

 an even greater divergence from the general 

 type. Working out this idea, he produced the 

 famous Burbank potato, of which more than 

 six hundred million bushels have since been 

 raised. 



To find a larger and more favorable field 

 for his labors, Burbank went to California, 

 and in the year 1875 settled in a valley about 

 fifty miles north of San Francisco. After a 

 disheartening struggle he finally saved enough 

 money to buy a small tract of land, where- 

 upon he started a nursery of his own, becom- 

 ing in a few years the owner of a business 

 that netted him $10,000 a year. It was not 

 material prosperity, however, for which he was 

 working, but an ideal which had been upper- 

 most in his thoughts for many years the 

 creation of new species of plants. In 1893, 

 therefore, he sold his nursery and began his 

 career of experimentation and achievement. 



At Santa Rosa, fifty-two miles north of San 

 Francisco, Burbank lives in a beautiful home 

 surrounded by rare trees, shrubs and flowers; 

 his great experiment farm is located at Sebas- 

 topol, eight miles distant. 



General Methods. Burbank achieves results 

 by carrying on two general lines of work 

 crossing and selection. The former process is 

 the uniting of two plants to produce a third, 

 and he brings about this union by placing the 

 pollen of one plant upon the stigma of an- 

 other, leaving to natural forces the marvel of 

 fertilization (see CROSS-FERTILIZATION). The 

 pollen is collected just before it is ready to 

 fall, and is applied at once to the blossom of 

 another species. Ordinarily he uses his finger 

 tip to place the pollen upon the stigma of the 

 plant to be fertilized, but sometimes it is 

 placed on the stigma with a soft brush. 



Selection means the choosing of the best 

 plants and the rejecting of the unfit, or those 

 below certain standards. Thousands of plants 

 must generally be grown in the effort to pro- 

 duce one improved species, and all of these 

 must be examined with painstaking care. 

 Sometimes but one specimen out of several 

 hundred thousand will be approved. When 

 the test is completed the rejected plants are 

 burned, a practice that in the early days of his 

 experiments caused Burbank's neighbors to 

 view him with astonishment. 



Important Achievements. It is impossible 

 to give a detailed or even a condensed de- 

 scription of all the very numerous Burbank 

 creations, but a few of special interest should 

 be mentioned. He has originated several vari- 

 eties of berries, which are of great commercial 

 value. The offspring of the native California 

 dewberry and a Siberian raspberry, which he 

 calls the Primus berry, was the "first-known 

 recorded fixed species directly created by 

 man." The phenomenal berry, characterized 

 by its enormous size, is the result of crossing 

 the California wild dewberry and the Cuth- 

 bert raspberry; the color of this fruit is light 

 crimson. Of still greater interest is the white 

 blackberry, a berry of snow-white color and so 

 nearly transparent that its small seeds can be 

 seen. 



Burbank's experiments with plums and 

 prunes have revolutionized this industry in 

 California. His success with shipping plums 

 has been especially remarkable, hundreds of 

 carloads being exported each season. One of 

 his most interesting creations is the plumcot, 

 the offspring of a Japanese plum and the apri- 

 cot. The plumcot is delicious in flavor, and 

 the flesh of each fruit is peculiar in color, be- 

 ing yellow, pink, white or crimson. He has 

 also produced a plum which tastes exactly like 

 the Bartlett pear. Among other new fruits is 

 the pomato, produced by selection alone from 

 the fruit of the potato. This curious fruit 

 grows upon the potato vine, but in size and 

 general shape resembles a small tomato. Its 

 delicious white flesh suggests several different 

 fruits. 



Equally marvelous are the Burbank flower 

 creations. Lilies, roses, petunias, dahlias, pop- 

 pies and many other beautiful flowers have 

 responded freely to his efforts to create new 

 varieties, but probably none has attracted more 

 general interest than his great Shasta daisy, 

 named for his favorite snow-capped peak of 

 the Sierras. The Shasta daisy is the offspring 

 of the English daisy, the wild American daisy 

 and their pure white Japanese cousin. This 

 lovely flower, with its brilliant white petals 

 and golden center, grows from four to six 

 inches in diameter. (A comparison of this 

 flower and the ordinary daisy appears under 

 the title DAISY.) Timber and forest tree cul- 

 ture, too, has engaged his attention, the very 

 rapid-growing royal and paradox walnuts and 

 the big sweet chestnut, which always bears 

 abundantly in six months, being among the 

 most remarkable. His efforts to produce an 



