The Grit-advocate., 1905-03-10
THE FARM AND RANGE
Luther eurbank's Great Work.

The Century for March publishes an
article by William S. Harwood. entitled
"A Wonder Worker of Science in
which he gives an account of the work
OF Luther S. Burbank of Santa Rosa,
California.
How does Mr. Burbank work his
wonders?" the writer asks. Here are
two plants-one from Australia, per
haps. the other from Siberia. Each
plant has its characteristics, its life
habits, its structure, its hereditary
tendencies-a life distinct from all
others. Each has preserved its iden-
lty thousand years, perhaps ten
times 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 pow
erfully upon it, it can not overcome the
change.
1.-The pollen from one of the flowers
has found its way TO the stigma of the
other, borne by the sensitive finger
tips of man accustomed to wait with
patience the outcome of his projects.
A year passes. The seed from the new
plant is planted. From its may come
plant like both of its ancestors, or
like neither, like nothing yet born In
the vegetable life of the world
And this is what is sought: to make
it different, to break up it's life ten
denotes, to recombine the hereditary
influences of its ancestry. In the
breaking up it may produce a whole
series of mOnstrosiries, the most
strange and grotesque 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 a
splendid norm. a plant which shall
have the best characteristics of both
parents and become a new and power
full factor in the beauty or the utility
of the race. The next year and the
next there are more seeds and more
plants; and in a few years, so great is
the progression, there may be 500 900.
Bear in mind that some of the greatest
botanists of this and other days have
carried on their investigations into
plant life and made their deductions
and formulated their laws upon work
ing basis of perhaps dozen plants.
Mr.. Burbank has used as many as a
has more than once rejected every one
of the million, save, perhaps, half Il
dozen or even less.
When the great mass of plants in
given test is ready for the final scru
tiny to see what ones shall be allowed
to live, then comes the exercise of the
most wonderful faculty of the man. He
must go over every one of these plants,
be it ten thousand or Il million, and
select from them such as are fit for
use in a continuation of the test. This
he does with marvellous rapidity. With
aids to bring him the plants, he passes
upon them with such rapidity that
hundred thousand may be decided
upon in single day.
IF all of these plants had to be
tested in the usual way it would cost
at least $1,000,00O. Each would have
to be set out by itself, covering a con-
siderable surface of valuable land;
each would have to be cultivated and
cared for for four or five years; each
would need to be grated. In a single
day this one man accomplishes what
could be reached otherwise only by
years of waiting and by an enormous
attendant expense, his mastery judg-
ment, backed by a wonderful intuition,
enabling him to accomplish that which
indeed seems little short of miracle"