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G r. R A N I N G R IN REE CULTURE 



July, 1920 



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MORE ABOUT LUTHER BURBAHK 



Stancy Puerden 



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OBEDIENCE 

 is a pleas- 

 ure — some- 

 times — when it 

 coincides with 

 one's inclina- 

 tions. A number 

 of the readers of 

 Gleanings h a ve 

 asked me to tell 

 more about Luther Burbank and his achieve- 

 ments, something which I am glad to at- 

 tempt; but please remember that a two- 

 page article about a man who has given a 

 lifetime of hard work, 10 to 14 hours a day, 

 to improving plant life, can touch on just a 

 few points which happen especially to in- 

 terest the garden lover and Luther Burbank 

 admirer who writes this. 



IT is humiliating to have to correct a mis- 

 take in the May article, where I said Mr. 

 Burbank showed us a wonderful hybrid 

 walnut tree, four years old. Let me quote 

 from a letter written by Mr. Burbank to 

 Mr. A. I. Boot: "In regard to the walnut 

 tree: This 'Paradox,' which your daughter 

 saw was just nine years old. It is fifteen 

 inches in diameter all the way up to twelve 

 feet, where it branches. This particular 

 strain of the ' Paradox ' bears nuts rarely, 

 but the growth of the new wood is about the 

 thickness of a man's hand all around the 

 tree annually." 



In a letter written to me the same day he 

 said, "Your article was in all respects cor- 

 rect except for this slight misstatement." 



It is very kind for Mr Burbank to call it 

 a "slight misstatement" when I cut his 

 figure in two and then dropped half a year, 

 especially as I happen to know that he has 

 suffered very much in the past from exagger- 

 ated statements. To be perfectly fair I 

 may as well confess that Mr. Burbank did 

 not know that I intended to write an article 

 about my visit, nor, as far as I know, was 

 he aware that I am in the habit of writing. 



The way the mistake happened was this: 

 We saw the hybrid walnut tree, which Mr. 

 Burbank told us was nine years old, and a 

 sequoia (giant redwood) four years old, and 

 evidently I unintentionally reversed the fig- 

 ures. I should have submitted the article 

 to Mr. Burbank before turning it over to the 

 printers, but California is a very long way 

 from Ohio, and, as usual, before the article 

 was finished the editor was growing im- 

 patient for my copy. 



THESE swift-growing walnut trees are 

 among the most fascinating creations 

 of Mr. Burbank. Years ago he began 

 crossing English walnuts with the native 

 California black walnut, raising seedlings, 

 selecting the fastest growing, grafting, and 

 repeating the process until after many years 

 he had seedlings which approached his ideal. 

 He selected half a dozen of these, set them 

 out in the hard earth in the street in front 

 of his home, where tiiey would receive no 



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cultivation a n d 

 no irrigation in 

 times of drouth, 

 and left them to 

 themselves. I n 

 14 years, in 

 1905, these trees 

 had become 

 nearly 80 feet in 

 height, 'their 

 branch-spread was 75 feet, their trunks were 

 fully two feet in diameter at the height of 

 a man 's head, and not much less than that 

 at the point of the first branch, some 12 to 

 15 feet above the ground. 



Just across the street was another row of 

 trees, English walnuts. In the 14 years the 

 new walnut trees had grown six times as 

 much as the older trees had grown in 30 

 years. All of Santa Rosa was interested in 

 the wonderful, swift-growing walnuts. 



Practical lumbermen will tell you that 

 fast-growing trees are usually of coarse, soft 

 grain, not suitable for fine finishing. Let 

 me quote again from Mr. Burbank 's letter 

 in regard to this: "The timber of this wal- 

 nut is harder than any other walnut by 

 actual test by the piano men of Chicago and 

 New York. In fact, it is so hard that it 

 cannot be planed but has to be sawed and 

 then smoothed on a sand belt. This is very 

 remarkable for such a rapid-growing tree. ' ' 

 In fineness of grain and beauty the wood is 

 much like mahogany. 



Those trees in the street had to be sacri- 

 ficed as Mr. Burbank said, ' ' They were 

 growing so rapidly that there would soon 

 be no street left." 



Let me make one more quotation from 

 Mr. Burbank 's letter to me: "I hope to be 

 able to send you a fine ' Royal ' and ' Para- 

 dox ' tree next fall. ' ' I don 't suppose I 

 ever read a single sentence which filled my 

 heart with such delight as that one. I am 

 sure I shall want to sit up nights to guard 

 them and watch them grow. 



THERE is so much more of interest that 

 could be told of the walnut trees and of 

 the wonderful chestnuts which bear at 18 

 months; but I must pass on to the fruit trees, 

 no less wonderful and interesting and per- 

 haps still more valuable to the world. You 

 who have Mr. Burbank 's 1920 catalogs have 

 doubtless read this quotation: "Before 

 Nov. 15 there had been grown and were 

 shipped out of the State of California this 

 season 1,192,256 crates of plums and cherries 

 alone of varieties which were created on my 

 own grounds, besides one large shipping firm 

 which could not make a variety report. 

 Some 7,000,000 bushels of Burbank potatoes 

 were also grown here this season, and un- 

 numbered carloads of rhubarb, prunes, and 

 other horticultural products can be added 

 for good nu'asure. " 



One entire town in California has been 

 built up very largely upon one or two varie- 

 ties of his plums. Several varieties are be- 

 ing extensively cultivated in the island of 



