The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1909-03-19
"A Talk With Luther Burbank
The Wizard Tells Of Some Successes and
Some Failures. = - - -

10
mon white opium poppy and another.
Often / am unable to account for un-
looked-for results of my experiments,
but in this case the reason was to be
found in the tendency of the opium
poppy sometimes to produce red flow
ers; and, though the particular flow
er | used in this cross was white,
the hereditary strain was in its blood
and cropped out in the offspring.
IA desideratum in the improve
ment of plants is to secure new varie-
ties that shall mature more quickly
than the original ones. Few people
note the fact that different individ-
ual plants of the same species often
have different rates of growth. You
think one blade of blue grass in your
lawn grows just as fast as another,
while, as a matter of fact, some pro-
duce their seed four or five times as
quickly as others.
1T is the same way with trees.
have been working for a good while
to produce quick bearing chestnut.
The ordinary chestnut of the woods
may take fifteen years from the seed
ing stage, but as result of my ex-
perimenting I have a specimen tree
on my grounds this year, six months
old, that has borne two perfect burrs
and each has its regulation quota of
nuts Now can almost promise you
chestnuts while you wait.
Failures? Oh, yes. I have fail
ures. Here is a picture of an i'm
proved prune plum. 1t excels the old
kinds in size and sweetness, but it is
a complete failure as prune for the
reason that the skin, instead of split
ting lightly in shallow lines in the
dip to which prunes are subjected
before dying, cracks wide open like
plum skin in canning.
Then there was my cross of the
raspberry and strawberry. Theoret-
ically that cross ought to produce a
good new fruit. I succeeded in get
ting between 300 and 500 vigorous
seedlings from the crossing, and they
thove well. The plants had the tri-
foliate leaves of the strawberry pa
rent, but occasionally they would
send up canes-that was the rasp-
berry in them. By and by they
bloomed, large, perfect flowers, that
gave every evidence of maturing
seeds, but not solitary fruit set up
on the whole plantation 1t was
straightout failure but somebody will
be able to establish that cross yet.
zone interesting feature in plant
experimentation is the occasional
cropping out of reversions to primi-
tive forms now lost through long Gull
tivation This fact gives us a hint
as to the original form of some
plants no longer found wild. I am
just now running Indian corn"-in
his New England way Mr.. Burbank
calls it Injun corn-"back to where
it was maybe two or three thousand
years ago. Corn, as we know it to-
day, is an artificial product, the re-
suit of generations or centuries of
selection before the white man ever
saw it. I have already secured forms
with the grains borne in the tassel,
like other grasses, for corn is
grass.
"The variation in the leaves of
plants makes an absorbing study,
and I would like now and then to de-
velop something new in the foliage
line, for leaves can be made as beau
tiful as flowers but there is so much
to be done among the flowers that I
am leaving the leaves for the pres
ent."
Luther Burbank's talk is singular
ly free from egotism. He is absorbed
in the love of his subject, and as he
touches lightly now on one featuse
of it, now on another, he impresses
you with the feeling that his work,
far from being hard to do, is really
very easy. That, however, is the
simplicity of nius.-Philadelphia
Record.