When Burbank Was Just 

 a Beginner 



THE picturesque New England town of Lancaster^ 

 Massachusetts, was a rendezvous for ministers, lec- 

 turers^ and teachers^ and was charged to an unusual degree 

 with intellectual activity. Into this environment, March 7. 

 1849^ was born Luther Burbank^. the thirteenth child of 

 Olive Ross and Samuel Walton Burbank. 



Luther was a quiet, serious child, whose most noticeable 

 trait was a love for flowers that amounted almost to rev- 

 erence. From his earliest boyhood he studied plants, trees, 

 fruits., garden vegetables — in fact, everything that grew 

 from the earth. 



But plants did not demand his entire attention. He re- 

 ceived an excellent fundamental education at Lancaster 

 Academy^ took great interest in chemistry and mechanics^ 

 learned the useful trade of carpentry, and for a time 

 worked in a factory near his home. At twenty years of 

 age. Burbank decided that a physician's profession would 

 be most congenial as a life work, and began the study of 

 medicine. However^, the death of his father caused him to 

 abandon this purpose. 



Soon after Samuel Burbank's death the family moved to 

 Groton — now kno^vn as Ayer, Massachusetts; and Luther 

 purchased a seventeen-acre farm in the nearby village of 

 Lunenburg, to be used for raising seeds and garden prod- 

 ucts. This was the beginning of definite experiments vrith 

 plants. 



The Burbank potato, Burbank's most famous product, 

 also his first, was evolved largely by accident in his early 

 experiments on the Lunenburg farm. A rare seed-ball of 

 the Early Rose potato afforded the material which made 

 possible this valuable discovery. Burbank planted the 

 twenty-three tiny seeds the ball contained and selected one 

 of the resulting plants as possessing the best qualities. 



In 1875. after three years at Lunenburg. Burbank sud- 

 denly decided to move to California. 



Ten Burbank potatoes, retained by their originator and 

 constituting Burbank's most tangible asset in beginning his 



