New Creations in Fruits and Flowers. 



5 



if he knew Burbaiik. He replied : " Course I do. He used to have a big 

 nursery, but sold it out, and now he raises acres and acres of stuff, and every 

 summer has 'em all dug up and burned. I wouldn't give a hundred and 

 fifty dollars for the whole kerboodle." The gentleman from the Atlantic shore 

 pigeon-holed the advice, but continued his way, and before the day passed had 

 selected half a dozen plants, for which he paid six thousand dollars. 



" Plant and seed novelties have always been and always will be high in price. This is 

 necessarily so. Originators have never been adequately paid for their productions. The 

 producer of a superior fruit, grain or vegetable should realize a fortune from its sale, for 

 such productions are rare — the work generally of years of study and toil — and they are 

 oftentimes worth millions to the public." — Rural New Yorker 



" Fruit-growers throughout the world are indebted to you for your indomitable energy 

 and perseverence in producing and introducing so many new and rare fruits. You will 

 hand down to posterity an enviable name and reputation." 



D. H.w & vSoN, 

 Montpellier Nurseries, Auckland, New Zealand. 



" Burbank has the most wonderful collection of plants of new varieties in existence in 

 America or Europe ; he has made most marvelous improvements in Blackberries and Rasp- 

 berries, and a vast number of Lilies, Roses, etc. He is doing a work no one has ever 

 before attempted, and with wonderful results." 



H. O. Me.\d, in Fitchburg Mail (Mass.). 



"Luther Burbank, the greatest horticultural experimenter in America, if not in the 

 world." A. Crawford, Cuyahoga Falls, O. 



" Luther Burbank is devoting his life and fortune to the improvement of fruits and 

 ornamental plants by seedling cultivation." 



E. S. Carmax, in Rural New Yorker. 



BiirbaDk's Horticultural Experiments. 



"Editors Press: When you requested me to give you some items regarding what 

 the nurserymen of Sonoma county are doing I little thought what a task I was undertak- 

 ing. When I struc'^ the establishments of Luther Burbank at Santa Rosa and Sebastopol I 

 found that I had a big job on my hands, and one entirely out of the regular line. I found 

 there the largest and most varied horticultural experiment station on this earth, and I think 

 T would be within the bounds of truth if I said it is as large and doing as much practical 

 good work as all others of its kind on earth combined. This may seem a very wald expres- 

 sion, but we will see as we progress. 



" Mr. Burbank began his experimental work in earnest when he was sixteen years of age 

 in his native State of Massachusetts His first marked success was the production of the 

 now well-known Burbank seedling Potato from seed sixteen years ago, and introduced 

 twelve years ago by Jas. J. H. Gregory of Marblehead, Mass., which to-day stands at the 

 head of all Potatoes of its season. To widen his field of labor, and to find a climate in 

 which he could grow anything he wished to without constant war wnth the elements, he 

 came to California and established himself at Santa Rosa, where, like many others, he had a 

 pretty hard struggle for the first few years ; but, being a tireless worker, with great energy 

 and skill, he forced a success, and Fortune was forced to nod her head to him. The com- 

 mercial part of the nursery business was pushed with great energy and skill, and was soon a 

 marked success. In the mean time his experiments in the line of producing new fruits, 

 flowers and plants from seed by selection, hybridizing, and cross-pollination was receiving 

 his constant care and producing wonderful results. Finding this business growing to avast 

 size on his hands and exactly suited to his tastes he sold out the commercial part of his 

 nursery business. 



"Mr. Burbank is now devoting his whole time to experimentation, and growing a stock 

 of the novelties he has already produced. I can best give a correct idea of this immense 

 establishment by telling what he h^s done and is doing. In the way of explanation. I will 

 first say, he knows no such word as cannot. 'I can't' was never in his dictionary. I 

 mean by this that he has never been bound by the supposed lines of hybridity ; by the laws 

 laid down in the books ; that the books and former supposed facts of science say that 

 hybrids cannot b^ obtained between this and that species is no rule or guide for him. He 

 tries, and. strangely, many heretofore supposed impossibilities in the line of hybrids between 

 distinct and very distantly related species are now facts, living organisms. In fact, Mr. 

 Burbank is a breaker-up of species ; he has proven that all life on this earth is akin ; that 



