Michigan Farmer is Rival of Burbank.
Hen Stratton, the Luther Burbank of Benzie County, Mich., is conducting a series of interesting experiments with his chewing-gum tree.
Last fall lightning struck three trees in Hen’s woods, and when he looked over the damage he had an idea. One of his young maples was split in two, the big spruce next to it was splintered, and the slippery elm, a few feet away, was hewed from top to bottom. Hen pulled the three trees together, bound them tight for twenty feet, and let them grow that way.
He thinks the sap of the sugar maple will flow through the spruce gum and turn out the finest kind of maple-flavored gum. He added the slippery elm to make it softer chewing.