Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1905-03-23
WIZARD OF HORTICULTURE.
Million Plants Sometimes Used /
MIR. Burbank in a Single Test.

W. Chl HGIiN III a oiIlSiS CSAs
From William S. Harwood's A
Wonderful Worker of Science in the
Century Scarcely a decade ago LII.
Their Burbank war virtually unknown
to the world. He was held in derision
by his relatives, in pity by his friends.
in Scorn by his enemies. He was de-
nomced by scientific men as little less
than a charlatan, producer of specta.
cular effects, a seeker for the uncanny
and abnormal an enemy of al true
scientific progress, a misleading,
though powerful, prophet of a new
order Of things that could never come
10 pass.
One day minister in Santa Rosa,
Cal, where Mr. Burbank lives, invited
him to attend church, that he might
listen to a sermon upon the work he
was carrying on. He accepted The in.
vitation, and was forced to listen to an
address violently denomcing him as a
foe to God and man, one who was in
terrupting the well-ordered course of
plant life, destroying forces and fun
ctions long established and sacred,
reducing the vegetable life of the
world to a condition at once unnatural
and abnormal.
Going a little further back in his
history, to the period in which he first
attempted to carry out the work of his
life, We find him more than once peril.
ously near starvation in a land OF
plenty, but rising by sheer force OF
noble ideals above all temporal Ms.
To-day Mr.. Burbank has become the
foremost man in the world in the
production of new and interesting
forms of fruits, trees flowers, vege-
tables, grasses and nuts. He has car.
ried his investigations far beyond the
point that he had reached when the
minister assaulted him. Last year
more than 5000 men. embracing among
them the very pick and flowers of the
scientific life of two hemispheres,
made the pilgrimage of his Santa Rosa
home to study the lines of his investi.
cations, to see with their own eyes
many things which their scientific
minds could not accept as truths with
out visual demonstration, and to learn
some details of the supreme results
achieved. During the year 10000 let
tiers were received. coming from every
quarter of the globe, asking for more
light upon his work.
How does Mr.. Burbank work his
wonders? Here are two plants-one
from Australia, perhaps the other
from Siberia. Each plant has it's
characteristics, its life habits. its
structure, its hereditary tendencies
a life distant from all others. Each
has preserved its identity a thousand
years, perhaps ten time ten thousand
years, not varying to any great extent
through the long centuries. He takes
these two plants and gives them the
opportunity to unite. Struggle as
each may, with the fervor of 10000
years of habit all powerfully upon it,
ii cannot overcome the change.
The pollen from one Of the flowers
has found It's way TO the stigma of the
other, borne by the sensitive finger
tips Of a man accustomed to wait with
patience the outcome Of his projects.
A year passes. The seeds from the
new plant is planted. From IL may
come a plant like both of It ancestors,
or like neither. like nothing yet born
in the vegetable life of the warld.
And this Is what is sought; to make
It different, to break up its life tenden.
cies. to recombine the hereditary in
fnences Of its ancestry. In the break
ing up 1t may produce whole series
OF monstrosities, the strange and gro
tesque plants that ever took root in
the soil Of the earth Some of these
plants are hideous, and all such are
put to death. For the object Is not
to produce abnormality. but splendid
norm, plant which shall have the