The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-06-16
NEW FIR UT And YER
The Wonderful Things Done by the
California Wizard of the Garden.

breeding and selection on the CalifOr-
MIA estate Of Luther Burbank. Mr..
Burbank grows plums and prunes
without stones, pure white "black-
berries" daisies four inches across,
and other wonders Of the vegetable
world.
The whole thing is more or less a
family affair-a marriage between
different individuals in the world of
fruit and flowers. The so-cslled
plumoot, which we may all be eating
with gusto in a year or two, is a re-
suit of a happ- union between father
apricot and mother plum. Those who
know the delicious apricot and plum
need not be told how much the two
look alike, but how differently they
taste. The plumcot is, theI efore, a
distinctive fruit-"as distinct ;, says
it's creator, as if a new fruit had been
handed down from another planet"
It has the general form of an apricot
and the same outside appearance, but
is more highly colored than either a
plum or an apricot, with a soft skin
and a shadowy bloom. 1t possesses
an indescribably delicious flavor. II
the public is unable for some time to
test this flavor for itself it will be due
to the solicitude of the California
wizard that no new fruit of his shall
leave his hands until it is a finished
product. In the gardens near Santa
Rosa, where Mr.. Burbank lives, there
are today growing many of these
plumoots, with varying degrees of
plum and apricot flavor blended.
In turning out the white black
berry-just ponder over this. for a mo-
ment and think what those two words
mean-Mr. Burbank is said to have
applied the Dsrwinian theory in
versely. He kept on selecting berries
which in ripening, did not become
pure black, and finally got a bush in
which the fruit changed from the
green Of immaturity to pure white.
This involved the examination of
some %, 900 bushes several times in
several succeeding years. The pains
taking energy necessary in such a
search is merely suggested by such
figures.
This making of new flowers, veget-
ables, and fruits is a valuable bust
ness, says Mr.. Pierce. Thirty thou
sand dollars was paid some years ago
for a new carnation, and the value of
some of the new hybrid fruits is, of
course. higher from the standpoint of
practical utility. Of late years much
Of the best experimental work on
fruit and vegetables, we are told, has
been done in this country by the bu-
reau Of plant industry, in the depart
ment OF agriculture at Washington,
the laboratory of plant breeding, In
der the charge of DR.. Herbert j. Web
Der, having produced many distinct
novelties. Says the writer:
Among their successes may be
mentioned a new grapefruit, or shad-
dock, a cross between the kid-glove
orange or tangerine with the ordiary
grapefruit. The offspring is about
the size of an ordinary orange, has a
skin which a be easily removed, and
flesh that falls apart as readily as that
of the tapgerine, with a modified
flavor of the grape fruit. To this new
variety the experimenrers have given
the name 'tangelo, from 'tangerine'
and 'pomelo,' the latter being the
true name of the grapefruit. An
other success is a new orange which
grows in a northern climate, yet pos
sesses a palatable flavor. They have
grown pine apples and thornless leaves,
a distinct boon to the pineapple picker
of the future. They have also pro-
duced a cherry tree upon which fifty
or sixty cherries can be grown in a
single bunch. The seedless grapes
obtained from the muscat of Alexan-
dris, is their handiwork, and was the
result of the selection year after year
of cuttings from those vines which
produced less than the normal number
of seeds.
What men like Burbank and Web
Der will bring forth in the future one
hardly dares prophesy. The posi-
bilities of selection and hybridization
are enormous. One may, however,
venture far enough to hazard a guess
that the seedless fruit and thornless
plant are certainties. On the seedless
apples the experimentalists are pa
tiently at work. If, they say, the
banana and the pineapple are practi-
cally seedless, and have been SO for
centuries, why should not the apple
be so? The naval orange offers a hint
in the same direction, and the pitless
prune and stoneless plum show what
can be done after excessive labor.
There is a fortune In any new seedless
fruit. The Strand Magazine.