Show am 1 y 3 g kg ra I 1 YZ ard y Z ia fe X 1 19 e 0 0 o 4 B by JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN BURBANK Is going to take life a little L easier caster after this ne ile h hns earned the right to take whatever rest lie he chooses ile iio Is seventy six and for fifty straight years he ling has been busy tit at tile tho work that has mado made him film world famous just how much rest luther burbank will choose to take Is a question lie he la Is in good health and la S IRS BS fond of work dorkas as edison dison than whom no one la Is fonder nevertheless Norert helesa for two years he has been gradually getting hla his affairs in shape with the idea of ll 11 having v some qualified institution take over his experimental farina nt at santa rosa eoga and carry on his work Pt stanford anford i university jt alt Is now announced noun ced ed will take over the durback gardens for maintenance and perpetuation the conditions under which stanford was established require that each ach unit shall havo have its individual endowment so a committee la Is now at work making maam the necessary financial arrangements it la Is not stated how much burbank to ti to receive for hla his gardens it la Is reported however that lie turns them over tit at halt half their full valuation the figures to be fixed by a friendly committee tile story koes goes that ahat private interests made offers of of 0 OOOO Ip and of and that burbank refused them on tho the ground that tie he was unwilling to cor commercialize his half century of work it la Is also said eald that several midwestern mid western and eastern colleges were desirous of purchasing these burbank eliminated its ag being too far away the story Is that burbank himself never dever would have thought of taking things easier but that two of his personal friends edison and ford proposed the plan and convinced him of its advisability Sta jordan of stanford Is another personal friend ile he too took kindly to the idea among others interested in promoting the transfer are president ray lyman wllbur wilbur herbert hoover william G Q Ife mcadoo Adoo rudolph Spro ckles mrs A 13 james rolph jr herbert slater sirs margaret Sartor ls and william IT II crocker at stanford it la 19 intimated that a rearrangement will follow the transfer the present iden idea seems to be that the gardens will be put jn charge of a sPec special ifil faculty of scientists tista vom lom nil all parts carts or of tile the world this faculty will be jointly chosen by burbank and the university burbank does not plan to give up work entirely lie ile will presumably be needed lie he Is quoted as saying that in twelve hours run aang S ile he would not be able to me 6 the experiments lie he now has bag under ay in ills his gardens outlier 13 burbank urbant 1 was born on a acre farm at lancaster mass ile he vvan s the thirteenth child in a family ot 1 l fifteen ills father gave him schooling in a private academy and then theil lie he harl ai to KO 90 to work ho got a job at a d turning lathe in worcester the job ill paid 3 a week forthwith he be ln iti anted an improvement on the lathe ht got himself put on piece work vork and ned some days as kilell na as 1050 1650 As soon ns as he got together a bit of one icy y he went to wo work rit at farming arming i the 1 ju hank kina gindin in lunenburg ami toon got to speak speaking ingi I 1 F of ailin ns as a 11 yankee who mho had turned hla his inventive knack toward growing things an experimental crank with a m mania anin for improving on nature bur bank himself ling hag written I 1 desired to deal with tho the forces of life and the tha plastic forms forma of living organisms rather than classify fixed and immutable rhen phenomena omens which would appear to be the province of the geologist the chief work of the botanist of yesterday was tho the study and classi classification fl of dried shriveled plant mummies whose souls had fled rather than the living plastic forms we have learned that they are as aa plastic in our hands handa as an clay in the hands of the potter or color on the artists canvas and can readily be molded into more beautiful forms and colors than any painter forms and colors than any or sculptor can ever hope to bring forth in 1872 in massachusetts when burbank was twenty three lie undertook to improve the potato says burbank Dur bank in this country the potatoes were nubby and small email and subject to rot and when they ran to any size elzo it would be in one dirc direction tion so that chev looked like lady fingers sometimes they would be all eyes running claar to the center they had to be trained to produce good roots and that was waa a matt matter or of selection and inviting a they had to be taught to stay in the hill I 1 found tho the seed ball of an early itose hose which seldom bears seed and got thirty two plants from it that were practically all different from these came the 33 burbank urbank potato I 1 sold it for it has probably contributed to the food values of the world burbank arrived october 1 1875 in santa rosa sonoma county california lie was unheralded and unknown but he had in ills his baggage ten burbank potatoes that lie he had retained from the massachusetts sale had the plant wizard lie he got the name early to padlock ills hla gardens and keip keep tits hla mouth shut he might easily have posed as an international mystery lie ile chose the opposite policy and when success arrived he proceeded to take the public into his confidence in 1893 lie published hla his first work now new creations in faults and ri lowers flowers other volumes followed in them he described and pic alc aured his lie he worked alone with no pecuniary assistance until 1004 when beijen the carnegie Car negle in statute granted him a year for ten years burbank Is not wealthy it is 13 stated merely well to do the title of one of burbanks books how plants are trained to work for man fan la is significant of his methods lie ile considers that lie he trains plants ile he cannot train the individual plant perhaps but lie he trains the plant family through generation after generation making use of cross breeding environmental viron mental influences favorable to variation selection of those qualities valuable to man nature herself plays a burbank prank every now and then for example the delicious apple and the temple orange soon to be on tile the market aro are both sports and burbank pats Nature on the back his genius consists in infinite patience in endless pains in the ability to aid al nature at tho the right moment he plants seeds by the millions ho he destroys plants wholesale ile iio once mado made an estimate that during a fifteen year period of experiment more than a million specimens were destroyed in the making of new creations it took hybrid vines to produce hla his white blackberry ile he says the materials to be combined bombin a d in orosa cross fertilization roust must be carefully analyzed and selected sometimes the right combination s are very difficult to obtain I 1 have hava waited years in many instances to secure a plant with rith one needed quality lacking in any of 0 the forms forma I 1 had available sometimes a friend or one of my collectors colle otora in another country has found the element I 1 needed for this purpose usually in a plant growing wild with it I 1 succeeded in making a finer plant than had ever before existed to summarize the results of burbanks work would take many volumes in fruits lie he has produced prolific and precocious varieties ling has lengthened the season three months has made mada important structural changes has secured entirely now new varieties for example lie has made a plum ile he has hastened the bearing ago age of the chestnut and walnut by several years yeara lie ile has produced the white blackberry and tho the plum cot a cross between the plum and apricot in flowers ho be has given perfume to those which lacked it and enlarged and beautified fled many from the yellow california poppy lie he created a flower of magnificent crimson he made the shasta daisy from the common field daisy of the east and daisies from europe and asia he has created a new calla amaryllis cle clematis matts gladiolus and colum columbine bino possibly the most valuable product of burbanks long years of work Is the cactus without spines or bristles ile he began work on tile tho prickly pear tuna in 1890 lie ile had cactus specimens sent him from all over the world he raised thousands of seedlings it was not until 1007 that he won success and gave the world a low forage plant luther Is much more than I 1 a horticulturist of genius ile he Is a n forceful personality with hla his own ideas and philosophies ills latest port portrait mit here reproduced shows a strong face and he has given the lie to the old saying that a prophet Is not without lionor honor pave in ills his own country for santa rosa greatly honors its plant wizard 11 as shown by the pictures taken nt at the burbank jubilee of 1023 when the tha municipally owned bur burbank bank park was dedicated this thia park will contain a collection of his prod icis long years ago the bard of avon declared it wasteful and ridiculous excess to paint the lily illy to throw perfume on the violet 1 but luther burbank has ham done just juat this and done it better thao than anyone else so the world has beaten a pathway to tit his a door and emerson ewerson has the laugh on shakespeare |