LUTHER BURBANK 



I recall very vividly the precise stimulus that 

 led me a number of years before the Japanese 

 seedlings were actually imported to turn my eyes 

 toward Japan as the probable source of a new 

 race of plums. 



A SAILOR'S YARN AND WHAT CAME OF IT 



Browsing among the books of the Mercantile 

 Library in San Francisco, I had chanced to come 

 upon an account of the wanderings in Japan of 

 an American sailor, and what particularly held 

 my attention was his mention of a red-fleshed 

 plum of exceptional quality that he had seen and 

 eaten in the Province of Satsuma in southern 

 Japan. 



That red-fleshed plum appealed to me, and 

 I determined to secure a specimen of it for my 

 own orchards. 



The sailor reported in his book that he had 

 seen a single plum tree bearing this "blood-plum 

 of Satsuma." But of course the rarity of the 

 fruit made it the more alluring. So in due course 

 when I came to make importations of native 

 seeds, plants, and bulbs from Japan, I urged Mr. 

 Isaac Bunting, an English bulb dealer in Yoko- 

 hama who collected these for me, to visit the 

 southern part ol that country and make a par- 

 ticular effort to procure with others some of the 

 red-fleshed plums. 



[14] 



