BURBANK, LUTHER (1849-1926), famous American plant breeder, was born at Lancaster, Mass., on March 7, He attended the public schools until 15 years of age, and then spent four winters in Lancaster academy. Outside of school he learned much about plant life on a farm, and found in the Lan caster library a copy of Darwin's Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, the reading of which marked a turning point in his career. Under its stimulus he obtained and read other books by Darwin as well as a number of miscellaneous scientific books. At the age of 21 he bought a 17 ac. tract of land near Lunenberg, Mass., and began his life-work of plant breeding. His most important early achievement was the development of the Burbank potato (1872).
He continued his work at Lunenberg until 1875, when he re moved to California, where his three elder brothers had already gone. He settled in Santa Rosa, which he describes, in a letter to his mother, as "the chosen spot of all this earth as far as Nature is concerned." In this earthly paradise he soon established a little nursery garden with greenhouse, which was to become famous the world over and in which, with certain added acres near another town a few miles away, he was to carry on unin terruptedly his experimental and creative work for 5o years. Here he developed that long series of "new creations," as he called them, of fruits, flowers, vegetables, grains and grasses which are associated with his name.
Burbank's work involved experimentation with thousands of kinds of plants and the experimental rearing of hundreds of thousands of plant individuals. It was not conducted to prove or test any particular scientific theories or to make scientific dis coveries, but had for its sole aim the production of more and better varieties of cultivated plants. "I shall be contented if, because of me, there shall be better fruits and fairer flowers," said Burbank.
Perhaps Burbank's longest attention was given to the develop ment of new varieties of plums and prunes. This work ran through 4o years of experimentation. Next came his work with berries, which ran through about 35 years and involved the use of over 5o different species of the genus Rubus and resulted in the origination and commercial introduction of ten or more useful new varieties. Among other fruits Burbank introduced numerous notable varieties of apples, cherries, peaches, quinces and nectar ines. Among flowers he worked especially with lilies, using more than half a hundred varieties in his hybridizations and producing a brilliant array of new forms. Among vegetables, besides pro ducing the Burbank and other new potatoes, he produced new to matoes, sweet and field corn, squash, asparagus, peas, etc. One of his most extensive experiments was that extending through 16 years and resulting in the production of a series of luxuriantly growing spineless cacti, useful for feeding cattle in arid regions.
He became special lecturer on evolution at Stanford university and published Luther Burbank, His Methods and Discoveries (1914-15) ; How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921) ; and, with Wilbur Hall, The Harvest of the Years (1927). Of peculiar interest is Burbank's brief series of descriptive catalogues of his offered new plant varieties entitled New Creations 190I ).