The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-04
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 that it is not protected by letters pat
 ent, and yet great fortunes have beer
 made thereby. The families of Burpee
 Burbank, Munson and Moore have be
 come great through ivention of fruits
 With them, however, it is not called
 invention, but plant breeding.
 A famous plant breeder Is Luther Burbank of Santa Rosa, Cal. He came
 by his genius fairly, for his father was
 a plant breeder and his mother was g Burpee, of seed fame, so that he got
 the instinct from both sides of the
 house. He has invented many valuable
 fruits, but the two most famous are the
 Burbank potato and the Burbank 1 plum.' When Burbank develops a
 valuable fruit or flower he does not get
 patent on it, he namea it and sells
 it at once to a nurseryman for a good
 round sum and goes to work on some
 thing else. Some beautiful and valuable
 creations in flowers were developed by
 Burbank.
 | Burbank's first creation was the po- tato that bears his name. The story of this potato is a verey vegetable TO-
 nance. Over v years ago Burbank was New England youth and lived
 not far from Boston. He had succeeded
 in producing what he considered a per- feet potato by hybridization, inter-
 breeding and careful watching. He had
 produced one seed; seed so small that it would have been taken several hund- red of them to make a good midday meal for canary.
 The seed was planted and young Burbank watched the earth to see it come forth. When the season came to an end he dug from the ground not quite four pounds of the most beautiful white potatoes ever seen. These he planted the following season, and the product he planted again and yet again. The next year the product amounted to two tnos of potatoes, which he sold for $150 to seedsman and the Burbank potato began it's journey around the world. This was 27 years ago. and 1t is esti- mated that over 2,O00,O0O bushels of potatoes are grown every year. A horti- cultural statistician has figured that since Burbank created his potato 162 trillion pounds of its kind have been given to the world.
 In 1875 Burbank left Massachusetts and went to California to live. He started small olive farm, but in few years he gave up every thing to become a fruit and flower inventor. His place is known as an experiment farm and from it have come some wonderful things. He has his home in the town of Santa Rosa, where on 10 acres and in a big thoroughly modern greenhouse he does his more delicate work. A few miles in the fothills he has his experi- ment farm. Visitors are not admitted to these workshops of the fruit wizard.
 At one time Burbank had on his farm S0,000 seeding lilies with which he was endeavoring to produce new species. He originated a new strain of gladiolus, and over 1000, 900 seedlings were grown before he was satisfied with it. Bur- banks genius has been shown in his almost weird experiments in crossing plants. He has repeatedly accomplish ed what was long thought to be 1rnpos sible, the crossing of the blackberry and the raspberry, and even the raspberry and the strawberry. He experiments with new varieties of fruit for years before allowing them to go out or even be named
 Burbank has made the plum perfect ! thing. One of his new creations was | bid for a syndicate that | offered $10000 for it's control, but it was placed on general sale, Pieces of graft ng wood of the plum sell for the fol- lowing prices: Two feet s15; five feet | s30; 10 feet $50; 50 feet, $200: 100 feet 1850. Pretty expensive lumber that! Dormant buds on peach and almond 'oots sell for $10 each. When cus- .omer complains about the price Bur- ,ank says: You do not appreciate the ,alue of two little pieces of living wood, me of which has the power of prduc- ng fruit worth $S55 a ton, while the ,ther can produce fruit worth only $5 ton."
 In another plum he says: There is nly little bundle of the grafting wood n existence This fruit sold for $S50
 box of 20 pounds of fruit. There were 8 plums in each box and they were worth 42& cents a pound wholesale. invented rose which he nam d after the city of Santa Rosa, which blooms every day in the year without ail
 This Edison of horticulture' as he is alled, hasn't a moment of, idleness At he end of one season of work he makes he announcement of his hew discover ss, much as Edison sends out knowl- dge of his new inventions. In his an- of new creations for 1900 he lentions a hybrid of a peach and a almond; a new hybrid plum enormous size and flesh like a white lcy peach; new oriental poppy with overs fully two feet in circumference I nd of a peculiar, unspotted, fiery sal lon scarlet color, with crushed leaf fleets; a new hybrid clematis, produc- l by crossing half-dozen others, the overs of which have new forms and lades and combinations of colors a ew canna, vermilion in color. with a .@AN~~~ 3 You