CHAPTER XXII. COMMERCIAL 



VALUE OF BURBANK'S NEW 



CREATIONS 



HE has about as much expression in 

 her face as a potato," a famous 

 prima donna once said to me in 

 regard to another opera singer whose 

 voice was more remarkable than her 

 intelligence. 

 The romantic story of how Luther Burbank 

 was helped by a potato ball to create a new 

 epoch not only in potatodom, but in horticul- 

 ture in general, has often been told, but usually 

 incorrectly. My brief version of it is based on 

 his own words. When he was a young man, 

 living in Lancaster, Massachusetts (where he 

 was bom in 1849), he one day found in his 

 patch of Early Rose potatoes a single seed ball. 

 Such balls were at that time still frequent on 

 other kinds of potato vines, but rare on the 

 "advanced" Early Rose. He kept an eye on it, 

 but when about ripe to pick, it suddenly disap- 

 peared; fortunately, after careful search, he 

 found it some distance away. There were 

 twenty-six seeds in this ball; all but three of 

 them came up, and a few months later, when he 

 dug the tubers, those in each of the twenty-three 

 hills all differed from those in the other hills; 

 for potatoes, like apples, very seldom come true 

 from seed. Some of the new tubers were "all 

 eyes," others had enormous eyebrows or pro- 



