8 
to-day the recognized variety. I cite this as showing what the plain, ordinary 
hybridizer over in Italy can do as against a wizard. 
The White Blackberry. I take issue with Mr. Burbank again in this matter. 
The magazine writer undoubtedly leads the public to believe that Burbank was 
the first one to produce white blackberries. He said that that it is a fruit which he 
“created ;” he does not say that he had anything at all to work on, while for sixty 
years or more we have had white blackberries. Fifteen or twenty years ago the 
trade generally gave up selling them. They had their little day and they drifted 
out. The old Chrystal White was the last one that we offered, and when Jackson 
and Perkins, who have a California place, came to us and wanted us to push this 
“Iceberg” blackberry, we said, “Nonsense, people don’t want a white blackberry; 
they want a black blackberry.” But the phenomenal “Iceberg” was issued with 
a great flourish of trumpets — Wickson states that is a feather in the cap of Bur- 
bank. 
They say that with his psychological instinct he reaches out and gets two 
species together (the raspberry and blackberry) that had never been gotten to- 
gether before, and he produced an absolutely new species, and nature was out of 
a job. This was achieved not only by Mr. Carman, but also by Professor Sanders 
of Canada about eighteen years ago. As to these gentlemen who exploit Burbank 
in this way, I think if they knew the truth they ought to tell it, and if they do not 
know they ought to ask somebody who does know. 
The Aquilegia Clematidea ; that is a spurless aquilegia. Burbank it is alleged 
bred the spurs off the aquilegia and it is heralded as an achievement, but two 
hundred years ago there were spurless aquilegias. Henderson’s Handbook of 
Plants, shows aquilegias, some with spurs and some without. Now, the beauty 
of an aquilegia is really its spurs. Without them the flower is characterless, and 
so the spurless aquilegia gradually drifted out altogether. Nobody cultivated 
them for years until Burbank produced or found them. There is also a variety in 
Japan, Aquilegia ecalcarata, which can be bought from European seedmen, which, 
placed alongside the spurless aquilegia produced by Burbank proves to be ex- 
actly the same. The supposition is natural enough in some minds that possibly 
the seed came from Japan. 
I want to call attention to the Bartlett pear plum. In the pub- 
lished matter relating to that it is stated that it is a plum with the flavor of a 
Bartlett pear, as showing how much can be accomplished by Burbank. It does 
not say whether that plum is as big or as heavy as a Bartlett pear, but by taste 
it is a pear; and Harwood tells a story, of an expert, a man who had been 
all over the world, he was blindfolded and a plum was handed to him and he was 
told to bite it and tell what is was ; he immediately pronounced it a pear, but it was 
a plum. It strikes many that the man who doesn’t know a plum from a Bartlett 
pear when he takes it in his hand is not much of an expert. 
The plumcot we have all heard of, it is a crossing of two species, which may 
or may not be of value. 
Much is made of Mr. Burbank’s lilies in magazine articles, but I only want 
to say that anyone who has ever done anything at all with lilies can get exactly 
