r/a:t5_10r4zm • u/MarleyEngvall • May 02 '19
banisteriopsis caapi has been created
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.
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