The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1926-04-22
AN INTERVIEW WITH LUTHER
BURBANK

Oh. H. Dunn in Popular Science
Monthly
Outside, the California sun.
shine poured down on garden.
riotous with m~any-colored beauty
Inside, behind a roll-top desk in a
bare office, sat one of the really
great men of u time.
A carelessly-dressed man was
this Luther Burbank whose fame
has girdled the globe; a simple
man who sat unembarrassed in his
shirt sleeves, whose collar button,
holding an old-fashioned collar,
glinted above the loosely adjusted
knot of an old-fashioned tie. Sill
ver-white hair framed pleasantly
a lean Yankee face, and blue eyes
remarkably clear cleaned amused
and olerant surprise at what
seemed to him a most foolish ques-
ton.
"What is vet to be done?" He
repeated my question in a tone
of general scorn. "Everythingl
7 have made only a beginning in
the development Of plants in the
service Of man. In the next five
ear / hope to produce plants
with grains and fruits larger than
any we have at present, with more
varied flavors and %colors, with
better storing and shipping quail
tiles. with more nutriment and
less waste, and with every poison
Gus or injurious element eliminat-
ed.
"There is hardly a day in which
do not learn something new from
the plants in my garden, or from
the weeds alongside the road. Elk
perience is the best teacher for the
worker with plants. In the years
to come | hope to be able to do
more useful work than I have
done. even in the fruitful years
Just passed.
Luther Burbank stood on the
threshold of his seventy-eighth
wear that morning I talked with
him in his garden-surrounded
home in Santa Rosa. Behind him
lay more than fifty years of con-
tinuous effort. But in the active
mind of Burbank, the wizard Of
growing things, is supreme conf
dence that he will fill his unique
place in the world for many.
wears. Calm, temperate, indus
trious. he works ten hours a day,
six days a week. A patient man,
he has grown and destroyed nine
million specimens Of one variety
Of plant to obtain a single perfect
one. It is since he passed his sew
entieth milestone that Luther Bur
bank has brought his most import
ant plant developments to com
Melton. In these last few years
he has produced his composite
black walnut tree, which in ten
wears atta.ns the size of a fifty
vear-old wild black walnut and
has a wood as fne-grained and
valuable as the wild tree; his
chestnut tree. that begins to pro-
duce at six months and is in full
bearing in two years; his late.
bearing cherry tree, with clusters
of cherries nearly an inch in di-
ameter; a mulberry tree with
leaves twice as large and thick as
the ordinary mulberry.
He has brought out a new wheat
having heads inches longer than
any other. This wheat, suitable
for all climates, has eve to ten
more grains to the head, ripens
earlier, and resists disease better
than other kinds.
He has perfected a ~beardless,
hull-less white barley almost in
distinguishable from wheat, with
six to eight grains added to each
head; and a new rye that grows
twice as high as any other and
has hVe TO seven more grains 10
the head.
The Burbank free-stone prune,
six inches in circumference, has
added millions to the incomes of
California fruit growers. He has
raised a sunflower with a head
eighteen inches in diameter, which
grows with its blossoms toward
the earth, so that the birds can
r9t harvest the seeds; and a new
asparagus with stalks nearly three
rches il diameter and as tender.
IT the base as at the tip. Most re-
variable Of al the Burbank Won
ders : spineless cactus, a Won
b fuI cattle food.
n the last two years Burbank
xss ~essrfed 70 the world q new