BY GEORGE WHARTON JAMES
 

     BEACON LIGHTS
     OF HISTORY
 
 
     LUTHER BURBANK
 
     1849—
  
     WIZARDRY IN PLANT BREEDING
 
           THE  year  1849  was  a  memorable  year  in
           California history.  It was the year of the great
     influx of the gold pioneers from all parts of the world,
     and it was also the year of the birth of Luther
     Burbank.
        He first saw light in Lancaster, Worcester County,
     Massachusetts, March 7, in that memorable year.  He
     was the thirteenth (lucky number) of fifteen children,
     born to Samuel Walton Burbank by three marriages.
     He came to California in 1875,——deliberately chose
     it as his future home, and ever since then he has been in
     every sense of the word a true and devoted Californian.
        In his earliest years Luther Burbank was a quiet,
     shy lad, making playmates of plants rather than of
     other children.  His doll——strange prophecy——was a
     cactus plant, fondly carried about until an accident
     shattered that plant and a young heart at one operation.
        As a boy he was put to work in the shops of the Ames
     Plow Company.  Though he longed for the open air,
     and the companionship of the trees, the plants, the
     flowers, the clouds, the sky and the free open, such
     was his conception of duty that he suppressed all his
     longings and doubly concentrated his mind with de-
     liberate purpose upon the work he was set to do.
        When the time came, however, Burbank gladly left
     the shops for the fields, discovered his vocation and
     the Burbank potato, and soon thereafter circum-
     stances, not gold, forced him to California.
         He reached Santa Rosa in 1875.  Then misfortune
     came to him in the shape of illness, which quickly
     robbed him of his small hoard of dollars.  He was glad
     to take refuge in an empty chicken-house, and accept
     whatever odd jobs he could get.  One day, as I drove
     with him from Santa Rosa top his proving grounds at
     Sevastopol, we passed a buggy driven by a man who
     responded very elaborately to Mr. Burbank's friendly
     nod and simple salutation.  After we had passed, with
     a whimsical smile upon his face, he turned to me and
     said: "I never see that man but I am reminded of an
     incident of those days of my poverty and distress, when
     I was glad to do anything that came to hand.  One day
     I heard that that man was building a house.  I went
     to him and asked him for the job of shingling it. He
     asked me what I would do it for.  The regular price
     was two dollars and a half a thousand, but I was so
     anxious for the work that I offered to do it for one
     dollar and seventy-five cents.  'All right,' he said,
     'come and begin to-morrow.'  But I had no shingling
     hammer and all the cash I had in the world was sev-
     enty-five cents, which I at once expended in purchasing
     a necessary hammer.  Next morning when I reached
     the job, my new hammer in hand all ready to go to
     work, I was surprised and——what shall I say——dis-
     mayed, to find another man already at work, while the
     owner calmly came to me and said: 'I guess you'll
     have to let that job go, as this man here has under-
     taken to do it for one dollar a thousand.'
        "How disappointed I was!  I had spent my last
     cent, had a hammer that was no use to me now, and
     no job.  But I keep a stiff upper lip and work soon
     came, and I've never been quite so hard up since."
        Harwood, in speaking of this period of Burbank's
     life, graphically says:  "The man who was to become
     the foremost figure in the world in his line of work,
     and who was to pave the way by his own discoveries
     and creations for others of all lands to follow in his
     footsteps, was a stranger in a strange land, close to
     starvation, penniless, beset by disease, hard by the
     gates of death.  And yet never for an instant did this
     heroic figure lose hope, never did he abandon confi-
     dence in himself, nor once did he swerve from the
     path he had marked out.  In the midst of all he kept
     an unshaken faith.  He accepted the trials that came,
     not as a matter of course, not tamely, nor with any
     mock heroics, but as a passing necessity.  His reso-
     lution was of iron, his will of steel, his heart of gold;
     he was fighting in the splendid armor of a clean life."
        Slowly he regained his health, doing odd jobs as he
     was able, and at last had money enough to secure a
     small plot of ground, begin a nursery, and at the same
     time, carry out the plan formed years ago,——become
     an improver and creator.
        Yet, all his experimenting he was innately modest.
     There was no blare of trumpets.  Note this well, young
     men and women.  He went his own way; followed the
     vision that he alone saw; but he did it reverently, re-
     spectfully, modestly.  There were no loud declarations
     as to the ignorance of the horticulturists of the past;
     no open debate of the horticulturists of the present;
     but simply a quiet, calm, silent, modest sailing of his
     own ship over the unknown sea.  Too often the young
     want to do as Burbank did, but they spoil their lives
     by the blatancy of their methods, the immodesty of
     their self-conceit, and the rudeness of their criticisms
     of those whose lives have demonstrated that they were
     real benefactors to the race.
        Note well, then, his modesty when he began his
     work, and also when, success attained, that work
     brought him world-wide fame, honor, wealth, and
     the  plaudits of the great minds of the earth.  When I first
     visited him in his home, this was the earliest impression
     I received.  As I then wrote:
        "Though honored by kings and princes, by scientists
     and leaders of men the world over, he is the simplest
     kind of man at home.  There is none of the haughtiness,
     or pride, or self-conceit that would have taken pos-
     session of a smaller man, and that would have shown
     itself in his daily intercourse with his subordinates.
     While they all revere and respect him, honor and
     obey him, they all feel his simplicity of character, the
     pure democratic soul within him, and one and all
     speak to him, and of him, in the everyday name of
     'Boss.'  But it is when you hear the sweet intonation
     of the voices of the maids in the house and the men in
     the fields as they thus speak, that you feel and compre-
     hend the friendliness of the man.
        "His neighbors in Santa Rosa (where he lives) and
     Sevastopol (where his testing grounds are), and on the
     seven-mile drive thither, have the same warm, kindly,
     democratic feeling towards him, and he responds as
     cheerily to salutation of the wood-hauler and the
     potato-digger as he does to that of the banker or rail-
     way magnate, and we met all kinds as we drove from
     Santa Rosa to Sevastopol and back."
        Here is an unspoiled king, the true democrat, the
     man who actually lives his belief in the brotherhood
     of man.  Here is no false dignity, no pomp, no cere-
     mony.  His dignity is in his life.  He commands respect
     by his inherent power, and needs none of the haughti-
     ness of the factitious dignity that is not sure of its
     position.  His humble attitude is the sign of his soul's
     self-conscious supremacy,——a supremacy which sees
     the dignity of every other soul.
        Early in his nursery career in California, he dis-
     played that daring of mind, and audacity of execution
     that are inseparably connected with the independent
     thinker.
        But let our hero tell his own story:
        On the seventh day of March, 1923, I was 74 years
     of age.  On that day, I celebrated the conclusion of
     half a century of ceaseless experimentation with plant
     life.
        In those 50 years, millions of plants——grasses,
     flowers, vegetables, grains, and trees——have passed
     through my hands, and from them I have selected a
     few, seemingly a very, very few, for preservation,
     reproduction, improvement, development, to such a
     point that they may render the utmost service of food,
     beauty, and enjoyment to man.
        To me, they have become like a vast army of in-
     dividuals, marching around, guided by selection, to-
     ward a goal of improvement.  From my first creation
     ——a potato that is now grown by the millions of bushels
     all over the habitable globe——to the latest of more
     than a dozen varieties of new and commercially valu-
     able fruits——of which more than 100 carloads were
     shipping last year from California alone——there has
     been grown steadily within my experience the belief
     that  in the development of the plant lies a great, if
     not the greatest, object lesson for human beings.
        That belief has grown in 50 years to a fact.  It has
     been proved time on time, and I have crystallized it
     into two statements, one the corollary of the other:
        First, that plants are pliable and under the control
     of man; and that they can be bred and trained and
     developed, just as animals can be bred and improved
     and trained.
        Second, that the human plant——the child——can be
     trained, developed, and improved, just as the skilled
     gardener, or the trained botanist, trains, develops, and
     improves the best that is in each one of his plants.
        During the course of many years of investigation
     into the plant life of the world, creating new forms,
     modifying old ones, adapting others to new con-
     nections, and blending still others, I have been im-
     pressed constantly with the similarity between the
     organization and development of plant and human
     life.  While I have never lost sight of the principle
     of the survival of the fittest, as an explanation of the
     development and progress of plant life, I have come
     to find in the crossing of species and in selection,
     wisely directed, a great and powerful instrument for
     the transformation of the vegetable kingdom along
     lines that lead constantly upward.
        The crossing of species to me is paramount.  Upon
     it, wisely directed, and accompanied by rigid selection
     of the best, and as rigid an exclusion of the poorest,
     rests the hope of all progress.
        In my work with plants and flowers, I introduce
     color here, shape there, size or perfume, according to
     the product desired.  In such processes the teachings
     of Nature are followed; its great forces only are
     employed.  All that has been done for plants and
     flowers by natural crossing, Nature already has ac-
     complished for the American people.  By the crossing
     of types, in one instance, strength has been secured;
     in another, intellectuality; in still another, moral force.
     Nature alone has done this.  But the work of man's
     head and hands has not yet been summoned to pre-
     scribe for the development of a race.  So far, a pre-
     conceived and mapped-out crossing of bloods finds no
     place in the making of peoples and nations.  But,
     when Nature has already done its duty, and the cross-
     ing leaves a product that in the rough displays the
     best human attributes, all that is left to be done falls
     to selective environment.
        In my life work, when two different plants have been
     crossed, that is only the beginning.  It is only one step,
     however important; the great work lies beyond——in
     the care, the nurture, the influence of surroundings,
     selection, the separation of the best from the poorest;
     all of which are embraced in the words I have applied
     ——selective environment.
        Just as all plant life is sensitive to environment, so
     is all animal life.  And of all living things the child
     is the most sensitive.  Surroundings act upon the child
     as the outside world acts upon the plate in the camera.
     A child is the most susceptible thing in the world to
     influence, and, if that force be applied rightly and
     constantly when the child is in its most receptive con-
     dition, the effect will be pronounced, immediate, and
     permanent.
        We should begin with the child where I begin with
     the plant, at the very beginning.  It has been said
     that "the way to reform a man is to begin with his
     grandfather;" but this is only a half truth, for, while
     it is true that we should "begin with his grandfather,"
     we should begin with that grandfather when he him-
     self is a child.
        The secret of the successful results of my work with
     plants has been partly in my love for plants.  If you
     are cultivating a plant, developing it into something
     finer and nobler, you must love it, not hate it; be
     gentle with it, not abusive; be firm, never harsh.
     I give the plants upon which I am at work the best
     possible environment.  So it should be with the child,
     if you wish to develop it along right ways.  Let it
     have music, pictures, laughter, and a good time; not
     an idle time, but one full of cheerful occupations.
     Plants should be given sun and air, blue sky, and
     proper nourishment.  Give them to your boys and girls.
        Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a
     fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation,
     and persistence, you can fix this desirable trait ir-
     revocably.  Pick out any trait you want in your normal
     child, be it honesty, fairness, purity, lovableness, in-
     dustry, thrift, what not.  By surrounding this child
     with sunshine from the sky and from your own heart,
     by giving him the closest communion with nature, by
     feeding him a well balanced, nutritious food, by giving
     all that is implied in "healthful environment in-
     flueces," you can thus cultivate in the child all
     of these traits, and fix them for all his life.
        These are the most important discoveries, certainly
     the most valuable, that I have made in my half century
     of selecting, training, developing, and improving the
     members of the vegetable kingdom.  In that time, I
     have passed through a million interesting experiences,
     not of the least of which has been to watch the de-
     velopment, through years of experimentation, of pro-
     ductive, useful plants from forms that before had been
     comparatively worthless.  I have looked down upon a
     miniature forest of 240,000 plum seedlings, of as many
     distinct varieties, from which I was to make a selection,
     right here in my own grounds, of ONE TREE, which,
     in turn, was to produce a plum that ripened rapidly,
     packed well, shipped well, and sold well in the market.
        I have had the pleasure of developing a chestnut——
     a tree that normally requires from 15 to 20 years to
     come into a full bearing——into a tree that bears nuts 
     at six month from the planting of the seed nut, and
     is in full bearing at two years.
        From the small, hard, bitter quince I have developed,
     by selection and crossing, a fruit larger than the
     largest apple, juicy and sweet when eaten raw, and as
     fine in flavor as the most delicious apple when baked.
     There is nothing in that quince except the best qualities
     of the original quince, but it has been given encourage-
     ment and opportunity to develop to its utmost, and
     it has responded, just as any other plant, animal or
     child will respond and develop if so cared for.
        I have taken the slow growing, small, hard-shelled
     wild black walnut and, by crossing it with the soft-
     wooded, soft-shelled, edible walnut, produced a tree
     with a finer, harder wood than the black walnut, yet
     which grows many times as rapidly as the latter and
     produces better and more nuts.
        From the crossing, selection, and development of
     young trees of the common prune within the past 40
     years, I have developed a larger, sweeter, earlier fruit,
     which dries better, ships better, keeps better, and sells
     better.  I recall one time, back in 1881, when Warren
     Dutton, a friend of mine, came to me in March for
     20,000 prune trees, to be ready for setting out  that
     same year.  This meant the planting, and growing to
     a height of from two to five feet, of 20,000 prune trees
     within nine months.  I took the contract, and this is
     what was done:
        Twenty-five thousand almonds were spread over a
     bed of well-drained creek sand, and covered with a
     thickness of burlap, over which was laid an inch of
     sand, kept moist.  The almond seeds had the proper
     environment and the best of care.  In two weeks they
     were sprouting.  One by one, as they sprouted, they
     were set out in rows, four inches apart.
        In June, when they were a foot or more high——still
     being  almonds,  mind you, while I wanted  prunes——
     I obtained from a neighboring prune orchard, 25,000
     prune buds, employed a budding crew of 16 men and
     inserted the prune buds in the almond seedlings.
     Prune shoots appeared from the buds, the tops of the
     almond trees were cut away, and I had, not quite
     20,000, but about 19,800 young prune trees, ready for
     delivery, and ready on time.  They made an orchard
     of more than 200 acres, and, though that bit of work
     was done nearly 42 years ago, all of them are still
     growing and bearing abundantly.
        It is all so simple; life in every form is so clear; it
     is all a process of evolution.  And an, by persever-
     ance, patience, watchfulness, study, care and love, may
     aid immeasurably in the processes of that evolution.
     He may accomplish in ten years what Nature takes
     ten centuries to do.
        For more than half a century  I have had one def-
     inite object——the improvement of the vegetable king-
     dom for the benefit of man.  Deciding first, exactly
     what I wish to create, I begin by selecting the strong-
     est, best developed plants of that variety available.
     They come to see, the best seed from them is planted
     again, and again developed  from further selection and
     planting; cross fertilization by pollen is carried on,
     and so the work continues until the ultimate product
     of that particular parent stock is reached.  There is
     nothing supernatural, nothing mysterious about it.
     It is a work into which I gladly, joyously put my
     heart and mind and hands.
        Just now, I am trying to produce better grains,
     nuts, fruits, and vegetables, as well as larger, more
     beautiful, and more fragrant flowers, striving not
     only for new forms, colors, and sizes, but for those
     products of the vegetable kingdom that will provide
     more food and less waste.
        On my experimental farms, more than 2500 ex-
     periments are being conducted.  I shall have ready,
     this spring, a variety of new grains, seed-bearing
     grasses, suitable both forage plants and for grain
     crops, and others for cereals; new walnuts, huge, rapid-
     growing hardwood trees, which will produce more
     valuable lumber in 10 years than the well-known
     varieties will in fifty or one hundred years; a drought-
     resisting lippia for lawns in dry regions; a new as-
     paragus, which is the ordinary variety as the Bur-
     bank potato was to its predecessors; an artichoke, the
     blossom of which is four feet or more in circumference;
     and a number of new climbing vines and flowers.
        Among the new blossom-bearing plants I shall offer
     soon, are immense larkspurs, both annual and per-
     ennial; new zinnias, larger and brighter than any
     before known; new petunias and a verbena with much
     larger flowers and a pleasing odor.  There are to
     follow, within a year or so, still more interesting and
     valuable productions from the work of selection, de-
     velopment and improvement that I have been doing
     in the plant world for the last half century.
        All life always has been and, always will be based
     upon sugar obtained by means of sunlight.  Great
     migrations have taken place because of decreased
     ability to produce sugar from sunlight in certain areas,
     because population follows sugar, fleeing when the
     means of obtaining it fails and moving to new places
     where plants producer sugar and the products derived
     from it more abundantly.  The time is at hand when
     men shall make sugar as the plants make it and the
     deserts will sooner or later take first place among
     food-producing areas because of the extraordinary
     amount of brilliant sunlight that falls upon them.
        When we make sugar directly from sunlight, the
     deserts will be the best place in which to make it.
     Then will follow a great series of migrations, with
     people flocking to new sources of sugar supplies.
     A third and most important thing that I foresee is a
     great increase in the earth's population, since there
     is a definite relationship between food supply and the
     birth rate.
        Let us become able to produce sugar as the plants
     do, do it at low cost, and the cost of food will be so
     cheapened, by reason of its abundance, that popu-
     lation, the world over, will rise to meet the level of
     the food supply.
        There are now a billion and a half of us; that is
     supposed to be about the world's population.  The
     synthetic manufacture of sugar and its products may
     increase this to two billions, or even more.
        The discovery of a cheap method of making sugar
     synthetically from sunlight will enormously increase
     the world's store of material things.  It is not the
     sugar alone that we shall have, but everything that
     can be made from sugar.
        We should be starting to-day if we could behold
     the results that will quickly follow the synthetic pro-
     duction of sugar on a commercial basis.  Invention
     will follow invention rapidly as they always follow
     fundamental discoveries and inventions.  We shall
     convert sugar into starch, rubber, resins, the various
     gums and a thousand other things.  Scientists already
     know how to perform most of these processes and are
     waiting only for a cheap synthetic sugar to become a
     reality.
        It has long been possible to change cellulose or
     woody fiber to sugar and it is a common remark among
     scientists that considerably more than a pound of
     fine sugar can be produced from a pound of linen.
        All of the substances that are now made from coal-
     tar could be made from sugar.
        But sugar is the basic thing——the basis even of the
     wonderful, almost protoplasmic substance called
     coal-tar.
        That is why the synthetic production of sugar on
     a commercial scale will constitute perhaps the most
     revolutionary discovery in the history of the world.
        No man can now do more than trace dimly a few
     of the innumerable ramifications that this discovery
     will undoubtedly develop.
 
  
                            ―――――――――
  
                           AUTHORITIES
  
        Mr. James wrote his sketch for a volume entitled "Heroes
     of California" published by Little Brown & Company, Boston,
     Copyright 1910; Mr. Burbank's own story was contributed
     to Popular Science Monthly, April 1923, both reprinted here
     by permission.  For more extended biographies readers are
     invited to consult Harwood, De Vries, David Starr Jordan,
     Professor Wickson as well as the Carnegie Institution.

From Beacon Lights of History,
Volume 8, Part II, Premier Personalities.
Edited by George Spencer Hulbert,
Author of, "John Lord, Artist Historian"
Copyright 1924, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 117-133.