“Mr. Burbank is of medium stature and rather slender form; light eyes and dark hair, now rapidly running to silver. His countenance is very mobile, lighting up quickly and as quickly receding to the seriousness of earnest attention, only to rekindle with a smile or relax into a laugh, if the subject be in the lighter vein. He is exceedingly quick in apprehension, seeming to anticipate the speaker, but never intruding upon his speech. There is always a suggestion of shyness in his manner, and there is ever present a deep respectfulness. He is frank, open-hearted, and out-spoken. All his actions are artless and quiet; even the modulations of his voice follow the lower keys.”
But, you ask, what marvelous things has this modest man done that should make his name a household word the world over?
All truly great people have high ideals that guide them in their work. The one ideal that guides Mr. 62 Burbank is his love for humanity. Naturally sympathetic, he cannot endure the thought of human suffering.
Since so much human misery is due to lack of food, to hunger, he has resolved if possible to make the world produce more bread. But how can he do this? If only he can get each head of wheat to produce just one additional grain then the problem will be solved––for then the wheat crop of this country will be increased five million two hundred thousand bushels. Year after year he worked at this task until finally each head of wheat actually did produce more grains. Now that he has succeeded in increasing the yield of wheat, he has resolved not to stop until the yield of all the cereals is increased in a like manner.
By what principle, then, does he accomplish these marvelous feats? What are his methods? Eager as we are to understand them, doubtless most of us must wait until we have learned a great deal about science, for his methods are extremely scientific.
Though unable to comprehend his methods, we are able to appreciate the results of his work. So marvelous are these results that they seem like fairy tales. For example, he has developed a white blackberry; but this is not all, he has developed blackberry plants so large that a single plant produces more than a bushel of berries.
I am sure that we all like strawberries so well that sometimes we have wished that the strawberry season were not so short; and in the future it will not be, 63 for he has produced plants that bear strawberries all summer.
Mr. Burbank, knowing that boys and girls are likely to hit their fingers cracking walnuts, has developed a walnut with a very thin shell, so thin in fact that the birds can break through it and help themselves to the meat. Now he has to thicken the shell again.
How should you like to eat a peach that had, instead of the ordinary stone, a fine almond in the center? In the future you may eat just such peaches, for Mr. Burbank has developed them.
Most of us have seen the ordinary cactus. We have been very careful, however, not to touch it as the spines are sure to prick us. It is interesting to know that the cactus is a desert plant––that, though millions of acres of arid land in the West can produce little else, they can produce enormous quantities of cactus. Unfortunately, these plants have always been useless as neither man nor beast would eat them. True, cattle liked them, but the cruel spines made the eating of them impossible.