Luther Burbank Biography
On March 7, 1849, Luther Burbank entered the world on a farm not far from Lancaster, Massachusetts. He didn’t go much further than high school, but even as a kid he was fascinated by science and machines. Among his early innovations were a steam whistle built from a willow stick and an old teakettle and a steam engine for his boats. His uncle, the head of a department at a Boston museum, and his uncle’s friend, Swiss-American naturalist Louis Agassiz, both encouraged his interest in the outdoors.
Burbank and his family settled on a farm in Groton after the passing of Burbank Sr. At the age of 21 he purchased 17 acres of land near Lunenberg, MA and began a 55-year plant-breeding career. Burbank came to the conclusion that better plants might be grown by natural selection and new kinds could be formed through crossbreeding, or hybridization, after reading Charles Darwin’s Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication.
Selection allowed him to establish his first productive plant. In 1871, he discovered a potato seed ball and used its 23 individual seeds to cultivate a unique plot. Many enormous, sturdy potatoes resulted from this. Burbank replanted them and got a few good potatoes out of them. In order to fund his journey to California, he sold the potato rights for $150. Three of his brothers had already relocated in Santa Rosa, and he followed suit by establishing a nursery garden, greenhouse, and experiment farms that would go on to gain international renown.
He got seedlings by doing repeated crossings between exotic and native strains, and then he grafted those onto mature plants to quickly evaluate their hybrid features. He continued his massive-scale plant hybridization and selection. Up to three thousand separate experiments involving millions of plants were under his care at any given moment. He evaluated over 30,000 different plum cultivars in his research. Although much of his original research was destroyed, he did manage to publish many volumes. In 1914 and 1915, a 12-volume work titled Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Applications appeared.
On April 11, 1926, Burbank passed away in Santa Rosa. New and different types of asexually reproduced plants, other than those propagated from tubers, are now protected under U.S. patent law thanks to the Plant Patent Act of 1930. It became clear that without the ability to protect their innovations, plant breeders would have no financial motivation to enter the field. In supporting this legislation, Thomas A. Edison testified: “This (bill) will, I feel sure, give us many Burbanks.”
Best books by author Luther Burbank Author
The Training of the Human Plant
This is a facsimile replica of an extremely rare antique book. Marks, notations, marginalia, and damaged pages are possible due to the book’s antiquity. As part of our mission to preserve, promote, and safeguard the world’s literature, we’re making this classic available in a new, affordable version that stays true to the original while yet being accessible to a wide audience.
The Harvest of the Years
It took Luther Burbank until he was well into his seventies to finally scratch the itch he’d had since early adulthood and put pen to paper in order to record the precise details of his countless and groundbreaking experiments with plants.
The last years of his life would have undoubtedly yielded thrilling, pungent, and instructive essays and volumes that would have enormously improved our literature of thought and remark if he had lived.
Only this volume, out of all the valuables he hoarded, has survived.
Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Application
This is a new printing of a classic book originally released before 1923. Whether inherent to the original artifact or introduced during the scanning process, this book may occasionally feature flaws such as missing or blurred pages, poor images, errant marks, etc. since of our ongoing dedication to the preservation of printed works globally, we have decided to reprint this edition despite its flaws since we feel it is culturally important. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to preserve this important literature as best we can.
Crescere come una pianta
How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man: Grafting and Budding
This is a new printing of a classic book originally released before 1923. Whether inherent to the original artifact or introduced during the scanning process, this book may occasionally feature flaws such as missing or blurred pages, poor images, errant marks, etc. since of our ongoing dedication to the preservation of printed works globally, we have decided to reprint this edition despite its flaws since we feel it is culturally important. We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to preserve this important literature as best we can.
Partner of Nature
This book provides a concise and straightforward account of Mr. Burbank’s efforts to breed and develop plants in order to create more useful crops, more attractive fruits, and more beautiful flowers for the general public.