August, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



105 



Luther Burbank and Plant Breeding 



By Enos Brown 



|0 LUTHER BURBANK has been granted 

 the knowledge, supreme beyond other men, 

 of the susceptibility of plants to vary under 

 the influence of new environments, delicate 

 manipulation and intelligent direction. 

 Variations in plants, in color, size, fragrance 

 or form, have been observed by biologists from the first, but 

 the phenomenon of change was regarded as a simple order 

 of nature and an additional instance of nature's lavish endow- 

 ments. That plants could be made to respond to a dominant 

 will, and that the character, appearance or habits of a plant 



It is only ten years since Mr. Burbank began those ex- 

 periments which have lately culminated. For thirty years a 

 resident of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, he was perfectly 

 acquainted with all the conditions of climate and soil which 

 distinguished this portion of California. In ages past a lake 

 spread its broad area over this valley, depositing in time a 

 rich alluvial soil of great depth. Frosts are of rare occur- 

 rence, and plant growth, no matter how delicate, is never 

 arrested from this cause. In no region is there a combina- 

 tion of circumstances more favorable for fullest develop- 

 ment or successful experimentation. 



Bed of Cactus Seedlings, Thornless, Showing Few Reversions 



might be controlled or altered, and that new ones might be 

 created out of a combination of others, was never dreamed of 

 or imagined, but all these strange things have been demon- 

 strated as facts in the later years of the present generation. 



The theory of plant evolution has, in a brief period, been 

 even more conclusively established than the most enthusiastic 

 disciple of Darwin ever conceived to be possible. That the 

 scene of these superlatively impressive manifestations of the 

 power of the mind over the natural impulses of plant life 

 should have been developed in the farthest West is some- 

 thing to astonish the most credulous. 



The marvelous results attained are due to nothing but 

 rational methods, insight, close observation and a highly de- 

 veloped knowledge of plant instinct, altogether directed by 

 scientific attainments of the highest order and with a definite 

 object always in view. 



It has been established that wild flowers are stubborn in 

 maintaining their original form. In a bed of one thousand, 

 or even ten thousand blossoms, for that matter, there may 

 be but one exhibiting variation. The change may be upward 

 or downward, an improvement or otherwise. It makes no dif- 

 ference to the plant breeder. One plant susceptible to change 



