Ig BURBANK'S WORK 207 



A GARDENER OF A NEW KIND 



Being a man of genius, Luther Burbank has 

 to suffer the usual fate of the truly great. 

 Most professional pianists and violinists speak 

 with jealous contempt of Paderewski and Fritz 

 Kreisler. In the same way some of the men who 

 are paid by the government to produce new and 

 improved plants or trees in the United States 

 experiment stations — which few of them ever 

 do — never fail to give Burbank a slam where it 

 is possible to work one in edgeways, or "damn 

 with faint praise." I happen to know that some 

 of these men have asked Burbank to write essays 

 for them in order to permit them to hold down 

 their positions! 



An amusing illustration of the professional, 

 academic attitude toward "mere genius" occurs 

 in Professor Bailey's otherwise excellent book on 

 Plant Breeding. There is, of course, a chapter 

 about Burbank — that couldn't be avoided. The 

 professor admits that Burbank "stands alone." 

 He is a "gardener of a new kind"; he stands for 

 a "great new idea in American horticulture"; 

 he has demonstrated that plants can be made to 

 do the most surprising things; his work is "a 

 contribution to the satisfaction of living and is 

 beyond all price." 



Nothing could be truer. But the professor 

 also says: "Usually I think of him as a plant 

 lover rather than plant breeder. It is of little 

 consequence to me whether he produces good 



