Luther Burbank
Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849–April 11, 1926) was an American botanist, horticulturist, and pioneer of agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career.
Life and work
Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, Burbank grew up on a farm and received only an elementary education. The thirteenth of 15 children, he enjoyed the plants in his mother's large garden. His father died when he was 21 years old, and Burbank used his small inheritance to buy a 17-acre (69,000 m²) plot of land near Lunenberg.
Burbank developed the Burbank potato in 1871. Burbank sold the rights to the Burbank potato for $150 and used the money to travel to Santa Rosa, California, in 1875. Later, a natural sport of 'Burbank' potato with russetted skin was selected and named 'Russet Burbank'. Today, the 'Russet Burbank' potato is the most widely cultivated potato in the United States, prized for processing. McDonald's French fries are made exclusivly from this cultivar.
In Santa Rosa, Burbank purchased a 4-acre plot of land, and established a greenhouse, nursery, and experimental fields that he used to conduct crossbreeding experiments on plants, inspired by Charles Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. (This site is now open to the public as a city park, Luther Burbank Home and Gardens.) Later he purchased an 18-acre plot of land in the nearby town of Sebastopol for more experimental growing.
Burbank's varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus (useful for cattle-feed) and the plumcot.
Burbank's most successful strains and varieties include the Shasta daisy, the Fire poppy, the July Elberta peach, the Santa Rosa plum, the Flaming Gold nectarine, the Burbank plum, the Freestone peach, and the Burbank potato. Burbank also bred the white blackberry and the nectarine. A natural sport (genetic variant) of the Burbank potato with russet (reddish-brown) skin later became known as the Russet-Burbank potato: this large, brown-skinned, white-fleshed potato has become the predominant processing potato in the United States of America.
Burbank's creations included:
Fruits
- 113 plums and prunes
- 35 fruiting cacti
- 16 blackberries
- 13 Raspberries
- 11 quinces
- 11 plumcots
- Ten cherries
- Ten strawberries
- Ten apples
- Eight peaches
- Six chestnuts
- Five nectarines
- Four grapes
- Four pears
- Three walnuts
- Two figs
- One almond
Grains, grasses, forage
- Nine types
Vegetables
- 26 types
Ornamentals
- 91 types
During his career, Burbank wrote several books on his methods and results, including his eight-volume How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man (1921), Harvest of the Years (with Wilbur Hall, 1927), Partner of Nature (1939), and the 12-volume Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries and Their Practical Application. Burbank also published in 1893 a descriptive catalog of some of his best varieties, entitled called New Creations in Fruits and Flowers'.
Other works include:
- The Training of the Human Plant
- Some Interesting Failures: The Petunia with the Tobacco Habit, and Others
- The Almond and Its Improvement: Can It Be Grown Inside of the Peach?
- Four Burbank Plums, and How They were Made: Methods Which Brought Unprecedented Success
- Corn: The King of America's Crops: Not Only Better Corn, But a Better Stalk and Why
- Twenty-three Potato Seeds and What They Taught A Glimpse at the Influence of Heredity
- Other Useful Plants Which Will Repay Experiment: Transformations and Improvements Waiting to Be Made
- How Plants Adapt Themselves to Conditions: The Influence of Environment
- The Tomato and an Interesting Experiment: A Plant which Bore Potatoes Below and Tomatoes Above
- The Rivalry of Plants To Please Us: On the Forward March of Adaptation
- How the Cactus Got Its Spines and How It Lost Them: A Sidelight on the Importance of Environment
- Some Plants which are Begging for Immediate Improvement: Some Plants which are Begging for Immediate Improvement
- Manufacturing Food for the Live Stock: Some Suggestions on Clover, Timothy and Alfalfa
- Plants Which Yield Useful Chemical Substances: Observations on Sugar Cane, Hops and Sugar Beets
- Short-Cuts into the Centuries to Come: Better Plants Secured by Hurrying Evolution
- What to Work for in Flowers: And How to Proceed
- No Two Living Things Exactly Alike: Infinite Ingenuity the Price of Variation
- Fixing Good Traits: How to Hold a Result Once Achieved
- How Far Can Plant Improvement Go?: The Crossroads Where Fact and Theory Seem to Part
- The Burbank Cherry: The Explanation of a Double Improvement
- My Life and Work with Fruits and Flowers
- Garden Culture
- Burbank's new creations and special new selections in seeds
- Proof book number 1
- How nature makes plants to our order
- Luther Burbank, his methods and discoveries and their practical application: A synopsis
- Fundamental principles of plant breeding: Production of new trees, fruits and flowers : plants and children
- Another mode of species forming
- Advance offering of pedigreed Burbank novelties: Fruits and flowers direct from Burbank nurseries, season 1912-1913
- New plants to feed the world: And other articles by and about Luther Burbank from Orchard and Farm
- The new Shasta daisies: "Alaska", "California", "Westralia"
- The fundamental principles of plant breeding
- Plant breeding (How his first plants are trained to work for man)
He also wrote two books unrelated to botany: Piecing the Fragments of a Motion Picture Film : We Stop to Take a Backward Glance and My Beliefs.
Burbank also had interests in religion and in education reform, writing "Why I am an Infidel" in E. Haldeman-Julius' Little Blue Book #1020. He befriended Paramahansa Yogananda during the last several years of his life. Yogananda wrote about Burbank in chapter 38 of his autobiography, describing him as the ideal of an American saint. Yogananda even dedicated his autobiography 'To the Memory of Luther Burbank, An American Saint'
In mid-March 1926, Burbank became ill with gastrointestinal complications. He died on April 11, 1926, and is buried near the greenhouse at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens.
Legacy
Burbank's work spurred the passing of the 1930 Plant Patent Act four years after his death. The legislation made it possible to patent new varieties of plants (excluding tuber-propagated plants). In supporting the legislation, Thomas Edison testified before Congress in support of the legislation and said that "This [bill] will, I feel sure, give us many Burbanks." The authorities issued Plant Patents #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #18, #41, #65, #66, #235, #266, #267, #269, #290, #291, and #1041 to Burbank posthumously.
In 1986, Burbank was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The Luther Burbank Home and Gardens, in downtown Santa Rosa, are now designated as a National Historic Landmark.
The town of Burbank, California, does not take its name from Burbank, but from the Los Angeles dentist David Burbank; however, the horticulturist gave his name to Luther Burbank Middle School in Burbank. The Luther Burbank School District in San Jose and Santa Rosa's Luther Burbank Rose Parade and Festival also honor Luther Burbank. Santa Rosa used to have a performing arts center named after Burbank, but Wells Fargo bought naming rights for $3.2 million in 2006 and renamed it. The Lancaster Middle School in Lancaster, Massachusetts was renamed to Luther Burbank Middle School in 2003.
The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center has digitized and published online the 12-volume monographic series Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries, which documents Burbank's methods and discoveries and their practical application.
In 1931 the Boys Parental School located on Mercer Island, Washington changed its name to Luther Burbank School. The school continued to function until 1966. The land on which the school was built was bought by King County and converted into Luther Burbank Park.
The standard botanical author abbreviation for Burbank consists simply of "Burbank".
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Kraft, Ken & Pat. Luther Burbank, the Wizard and the Man. New York : Meredith Press, 1967
- Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Los Angeles : Self-Realization Fellowship, 1946 ISBN 0876120834
External links
- Luther Burbank Home and Gardens official website
- National Inventors Hall of Fame profile
- Wells Fargo Center for the Arts (formerly the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts)
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