Identifier: lutherburbankhis03burb (find matches)
Title: Luther Burbank, his methods and discoveries and their practical application; prepared from his original field notes covering more than 100,000 experiments made during forty years devoted to plant improvement
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Burbank, Luther, 1849-1926 Whitson, John John, Robert Williams, Henry Smith, 1863-1943 Luther Burbank Society
Subjects: Plant breeding
Publisher: New York, Luther Burbank Press
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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to no definite goal. A largepart of the time of every experimenter must begiven up to following trails that lead nowhere inparticular or that end in blind cul de sacs. The work of the plant experimenter is noexception, but there is always an incentive tofurther effort in the knowledge that a path thatseems to lead only into impenetrable mazes maypresently bring one out into the light. To makethe application to one illustrative case amongmany, I recall that for twenty-four successiveseasons I attempted to hybridize certain speciesof Solanum before I finally succeeded in effectinga cross that gave me a single seed from whichsprang the new race of Sunberries. But it must not be understood that the mainbulk of my experiments are made in any hap-hazard manner. On the contrary my most important resultshave been attained by continuing the experimen-tation along rigidly predetermined lines and bymethods of hybridizing and selection that myearlier work had fully established. Having served (10)
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Strawberries Showing Variation This picture illustrates the variation that may be shown by fruit growing on vines from the same lot of seed. By selection, each type of berry here shown might have its peculiarities accentuated, and as many new varieties developed. Mr. Burbank is always on the lookout for variation among his plants, and such variation forms the basis of his experiments in selective breeding. LUTHER BURBANK a long apprenticeship and tested the usual limitsof making new plant combinations, I was presentlyable, like any other trained technician, to applythe knowledge thus acquired toward far moredefinite results than were at first possible. In the case of the Shasta daisy, the plans wereall laid out beforehand as to just what type offlower I wished to produce. The ideal of a white blackberry w^as also, ofcourse, a perfectly precise and definite one. Obviously the scented calla, the stoneless plum,the early bearing cherry, the sugar prune, and thespineless cactus are other

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