160 PLANT-BREEDING 



over, the Institution will take in hand the recording of the 

 history of his experiments and thus create a source of practi- 

 cal and scientific information of the highest importance upon 

 many questions of plant-breeding. 



Such a standard work is the more needed, since the 

 methods and results of European horticulturists, are, as a 

 rule, accessible to American breeders only with difficulty. 

 Burbank has had to rediscover many of the rules and prac- 

 tices which in Europe were more or less universally known. 

 His science and methods are .his own w r ork, although in 

 comparison with those of other horticulturists they do not 

 contain essentially different procedures. It is a most interest- 

 ing study to go into the details of such a comparison, espec- 

 ially since, by the same principles, he has obtained such 

 striking new results. If his work does not enlarge our 

 knowledge of the general rules, as it is not intended to do, 

 it, at least, provides us with such numerous illustrations that 

 a description of his experiments, even if but brief and incom- 

 plete, may be considered as a review of almost the whole 

 field of horticultural plant-breeding. 



From this point of view I shall now give a survey of 

 Burbank 's work. In doing so it is not my aim to recom- 

 mend his fruits or his flowers. They recommend them- 

 selves, and their world-wide appreciation gives the best 

 proof of their high value. I am concerned only with the 

 methodological side of the work, and my main aim is to de- 

 scribe such details as will best contribute to the establishment 

 of the full agreement of Burbank 's experience with the agricul- 

 tural methods of Nilsson on the one side, and with the latest 

 results of biological investigation on the other. 



Luther Burbank was born March 7, 1849, i n Lancaster, 

 Mass. His father was of English and his mother of Scottish 

 ancestry. He was reared on a New England farm and 

 indulged in the breeding of American grapes and of new 



