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LUTHER BURBANK 
A SHORT REVIEW OF HIS WORK IN PLANT HYBRIDIZATION AND BRIEF 
COMPARISON WITH OTHER HYBRIDIZERS. 
By PATRICK O’MAR A, JERSEY CITY, N. J. 
63 
F OLLOWING my visit to Santa Rosa, California, and a short trip On the Pacific 
Coast, in the summer of 1905, I very briefly alluded to the work of Mr. 
Luther Burbank as a plant breeder before a meeting of the New York Florists’ 
Club, taking the ground that his achievements in that line did not warrant the ful- 
some and extravagant praises bestowed on him by certain writers in the maga- 
zines and current newspapers. The few remarks I made were generally sustained 
by writers in the horticultural press in the United States and abroad. At the 
request of many who are interested in the subject I have undertaken to amplify 
what I said then and Incorporate some of what has been written on the subject 
since that time. 
As a fair start, so to speak, be it remembered, that the climatic conditions 
existing on the Pacific Slope are diametrically opposite to those encountered here. 
Many plants which succeed there fail here; A plant that will thrive here is in all 
likelihood going to thrive there. A notable example is the European grape vine, 
which does admirably on the Pacific Slope and will not thrive here. As a further 
example I would cite Fuchsias and Ivy Geraniums, they will not flourish here as 
they do on the Pacific Coast. 
Practical men have therefore looked for many years with some suspicion on 
varieties which occur on the Pacific Slope, and when they come heralded with 
all manner of praise — such praise as only the Golden West can bestow upon its 
products — we do not accept them with all the praise that the Golden West puts 
upon them. We go cautiously. We say we will try them here first. Many of 
the plants that have come out of the Golden West have been sad failures in the 
Leaden Ekst, if I may so dub it. I have a very distinct recollection when the 
Oregon ever-bearing strawberry was launched upon an unsuspecting public. I 
pricked up my ears and said to the man who urged it upon me, “I am rather 
inclined to believe that we require the soil and particularly the climate of the 
Pacific Coast to get out of that variety all that you get out of it there.” What I 
feared was the result. The Oregon ever-bearing strawberry was tried extensively 
in the East and it failed and disappeared completely. Sometime after this the 
name of Burbank loomed up on the horticultural horizon, and it came to us in a 
very peculiar way, through a very modest little booklet, his catalogue, modest in 
