Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1905-03-17
HOW BURBANK WORKS
Methods Used by CALIFORNIA;
Horticultural Wizard.
ALL HIDEOUs PLANTS DESTROYED

A million Plants Have Reen some
times tsed In single Tcsi-har-
Vicious Rapidity Displayed In Sc
I-ctinE Specimens Fit FOR tsc In
CoEtinuing Experiments.
How Luther NJ. Burbank. the horti-
cultural wizard of California, works
his wonders with plants is thus de-
scribed 10y William S. Ilarwood in his
"A Wonder Worker of Science in the
March Century:
Scarcely decade ago Luther Bur
bank was virtually unknown TO the
world. He was held in derision by his
relatives. in pity by his friends, III
scorn by his enemies. He WAS de-
nounced by scientific men aS little less
than a charlatan. producer OF spec
tacular effects. a seeker for the uncan-
ny and abnormal, an enemy to all true
scientific progress, misleading though
powerful prophet of new order OF
things that could never come to pass.
Today Mr.. Burbank has become the
foremost man in the world in the pro
duction of new and interesting forms
of fruits, trees, flowers, vegetables,
grasses and nuts. He has carried his
investigations far beyond the point
that he had reached when the minister
assailed him. Last year more IMAM
5000 men. embracing among them the
very pick and flower of the scientific
life of two hemispheres, made the phi
grimage TO his Santa Rosa home to
study the lines of his Investigations, to
see with their own eyes many things
which their scientific minds could not
accept as truth without visual demon
stration and to learn some details OF
the supreme results achieved. During
the year 10000 letters We're 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 its characters
tics, its life habits. its structure. its
hereditary tendencies-a life distinct
from all others. Each has preserved its
identity a 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 cannot overcome the
change,
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 pa
tence the outcome Of his projects. A
year passes. The seed from the new
plant is planted. From it may come
plant like both of its ancestors or like
neither, like nothing yet born in the
vegetable life ef the world.
And this is what is sought--to make
it different, to break up it life tenden-
cies. to recombine the hereditary intiu-
ences of it's ancestry. In the breaking
up it may produce whole series of
monstrosities, the most strange and
grotesQues 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. plant which shall have the
best characteristics of both parents
and become a new and powerful fac
tor 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 100000 Bear
in mind that some of the greatest bot
anists of this and other days have car
red on their investigations into plant
life and made their deductions and
formulated their laws upon a working
basis Of perhaps dozen plants. Mr..
Burbank has used as many as Il mil
lion plants for single test. and he has
more than once rejected every one Of
the million, save perhaps half a dozen
or even less.
When the great mass of plants in a
given teSl is Icduy LOT tne llNul ScFI-
tiny to see what ones shall be allowed
to live, then comes the exercise of
the most wonderful faculty of the man.
He must 60 over every one Of these
plants, be it ten thousand or a million,
and select from them such as are fit
for use in 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 a hundred thousand may be de.
cided upon in single day.
If all Of these plants had to be test.
ed in the usual way it would cost at
least S1,000,000. Zach 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 he grated. In 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 wonderful intuition
enabling him to accomplish that which
indeed seems little short of miracle