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Luther Bukbank, Santa Rosa, Cal. 



" Mr. Burbank has devoted a life's work to the growing of new things, and has had 

 wonderful success in gaining hybrids between distinct species of hundreds of fruits and 

 flowers, many of them between species that ten years ago a man would have been consid- 

 ered ' a dead gone crank ' if he had intimated that such hybrids could be obtained. 



" He has to day growing, with many of them in fruit, hybrids between nearly all the 

 different species of the Ahnond family, between nearly all the species of the Blackberries and 

 Raspberries, and between the different members of each, and also the Dewberries. Some of 

 these are not only exceeding curious, but of wonderful vigor, productiveness, size and quality 

 of fruit. I would sa}- that his best Dewberries and Raspberries exceed all the older varie- 

 ties at least four times in productiveness, and are all that could be asked for in size and 

 quality of fruit. These are only examples of what he has been doing. Nearly every 

 known fruit and flower that can be made to grow ' in this California climate ' has been 

 manipulated, species ripped up, broken up and 'taken through a course of sprouts,' 

 until a botanist who should view the ' remains ' could hardly find a whole plank large 

 enough to place his feet on. 



"As one example of his work, he has grown from the choicest seed, selected from 

 every species and strain, over 100,000 roses ; from these he selected with the utmost care 

 25,000 and flowered them, and I saw them in bloom at three different times this season. 

 And though I am no florist 1 know that there were some ' eood ones ' among them, and 

 that the square acre of new seedling roses all in bloom was a goodly s'ght. 



"The gladioli were early a favorite flower on this coast; but the old varieties all 

 had two serious faults. In our richest of rich soils the stems grew too tall (here we have a 

 gentle, sometimes increasing to a strong steady wind nearly constantly in summer, gener- 

 alh- from one point of the compass, which was hard on these tall slender stems), and the 

 flowers were scattered too much on the stems, also they w^ere not large enough and not 

 enough of them in bloom at one time. Mr. Burbank set himself to the task of remedy- 

 ing all these defects, with one other very prominent one here under our bright skies; 

 namely, the flowers of the old strains did not well withstand this bright sun and dry- 

 ing wind. Well, he grew thousands and thousands of seedlings, crossed and recrossed the 

 varieties, with the result that every defect has been eliminated, and he has a new creation, 

 embodj'ing in perfection every point fought for and more. He has doubles of the largest 

 size, perfect in color and markings. He has strains of nearly all colors of the largest of 

 flowers, so closely ranked that the flowers seem to be ranked in four rows on the stem, 

 and, best of all, flowers to the tips of the canes, so close together as to give the extremity 

 of the flower stem a perfect solid cone of flowers, the petals entirely hiding the stem on all 

 sides. The individual flowers are simply immense in size, we found numerous ones of 

 many varieties five and one-half inches from tip to tip of petals, with colors of every 

 kind and markings known to the species. As to the size of the flowers I will say I 

 visited many gardens in Santa Rosa and Petaluma which had in bloom, I may say, 

 nearly all of the older choice varieties, and the largest flower found was four and a 

 quarter inches across the petals, the average being about two and a half inches, and 

 then having all the care that rich soil, culture and water that could be given them, 

 while the Burbank seedlings were growing in crowded rows on light sandy soil and no 

 irrigation. 



"Mr. Falconer speaks of 'grand flowers with stems five and six feet tall,' Mr. 

 Burbank bred for an ideal plant with a stiff short stem able to support itself in a windy 

 country wiih stems two and a half to three feet and a half high, and he got it. Again 

 the finer old sorts were too ephemeral, would not withstand the sun with their thin 

 petals. Mr. Burbank bred for thick fleshy porcelain petals that would withstand bright 

 sun and buffeting breezes, and he got them. 



" And so it seems to be nearly all the way through. He has developed nearly 

 everything he has tried for. He has thousands of new things, some of them truly won- 

 ders, as an example has 10,000 new varieties of Potatoes selected from tens of thousands 

 of seedlings. I will close by saying, please do not burden Mr. Burbank with inquiries. 

 He is a very busy man, and has nothing for sale except such things as he advertises each 

 autumn in his list of novelties." — D. B. WiER, in American Florist. 



"A serious defect of some otherwise very good varieties of the Gladiolus is lack of sub- 

 stance in the petals, unfitting them to endure the sunshine long without wilting. This is a 

 fault of many of the beautiful sorts sent out by Messrs. Kelway of Somerset, England. 

 Special efforts have been made to overcome this imperfection by growers in various parts of 

 the I'nited States, the most successful of whom is Mr. Burbank, already referred to, who 

 seems to have obtained a new strain suited to the warm, dry climate of California. Among 

 his choice varieties is ' California,' the nearest approach to a double Gladiolus yet obtained, 

 bearing its flowers all around the spike like a Hyacinth." — J. R. Black, in AVa' York 

 Examiner. 



"I am sorry to say that these California Gladioli, of which I had formed such high 

 expectations, are not what we consider ver\- good flowers in the vicinity of Boston ; none of 



