Photograph from Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
LUTHER BURBANK
World Famous Plant Wizard
When he was just a lad he was taken out of school and put to work in a plow factory that belonged to his uncle. But he did not like the factory. Often he longed for the out of doors with its plants and flowers. So strong was this desire for the out of doors that he left the factory and began truck gardening on a small scale; and it was while caring for this truck garden that he developed the Burbank potato, thus achieving his first success. So valuable was this discovery that the United States Department of Agriculture declares that the Burbank potato has added to the wealth of this country seventeen million dollars each year since this variety was developed.
When twenty-six years of age, Mr. Burbank decided that the climate and soil of far-away California were best suited to his work. Accordingly, with ten of his best potatoes, and his small savings, he started across the continent. When his journey was ended he found himself in a fertile but unimproved valley about fifty miles north of San Francisco. On either side of this beautiful valley were spurs of the Coast Range Mountains.
His first task was to find work, but as few people at that time lived in the region, jobs were hard to get. In speaking of this period of his life, Mr. Burbank says: “One day I heard that a 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 tomorrow.’ But I had no shingling hammer and all the cash I had in the world was seventy-five cents, 60 which I at once expended in purchasing the 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––dismayed, 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 undertaken 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 kept a stiff upper lip and work soon came, and I’ve never been so hard up since.”
Mr. Harwood in describing this period in the life of Mr. Burbank 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 his footsteps, was a stranger in a strange land, close to starvation, penniless, beset by disease, hard by the gates of death. But never for an instant did this heroic figure lose hope, never did he abandon confidence in himself nor 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 heroism, but as a passing necessity. His resolution was of iron, his will of steel, his heart of gold; he was fighting in the splendid armor of a clean life.”
As a result of his industry, in a few years, Mr. Burbank was able to buy four acres of land where he started a nursery. From the first this enterprise was successful. Upon this plot he built a modest home where he still resides. Here, and on a larger plot a few miles distant, all his remarkable experiments have been made.
Before we learn more about his achievements I am sure we should like to become better acquainted with the man. Suppose, then, we invite Professor Edward Wickson of the University of California, who knows him well, to tell us about him.