The Biggest of California’s “Giants”

PART OF BURBANK'S HOME GROUNDS. SANTA ROSA, CAL. The Biggest of California's "Giants. BY KATE THOMAS. 99 "The greatest service -which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture." — Thomas Jefferson. We disagree somewhat, of course, for I think that the greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add to its culture a useful, honorable, high-minded citizen. And if every father and mother of children loved them as Luther Burbank loves his plants, watched them, petted them, coaxed the good along, so that the superabundance of growing good would naturally let the bad die out, it would not be long before the world had practically no ethical problems to solve. Who is Luther Burbank? He is one of those little-known, world-famous, simple folk who make epochs in the growth of a planet towards perfection. The instruction for distributing such usually reads: "Only one to a world." He occupies a place among the highest of all created things, because he is himself a creator. And inasmuch as he is of the truly great, there is nothing bumptious about him. He spends his life humbly and actively, among his tools and experi- ment tables, at his garden in Santa Rosa, and at his farm, or orchard, luther burbank. some five miles out. He is a slender man, past sixty, with a fine balance of firmness and love, an artistic nature and a business ability. If you have an exalted opinion of his work, and take the trip

THE BIGGEST OF CALIFORNIA'S "GIANTS" 39 tojSanta Rosa from a genuinely altruistic emotion, you will experi- ence something resembling a shock. For you may not enter the gate. You may look over the low fence at the garden which you do not understand, and which no one explains to you, and at the old, vine-covered house where the man of whom you want just a glimpse works on, so unconscious of your presence that he does not so much as peep through the blind to see what he has avoided! You may enter the "Information Bureau," and buy as many rather ugly souvenirs, at somewhat over-estimated prices, as you (don't) want. There is something degrading about that "bureau." It seems too small a thing to have "commercialism" in such big letters on it. All the "information" you get is that you can buy salts and peppers, resembling the cactus fruit, for seventy-five cents per pair. If you were the walrus, or even the carpenter, and all the little oysters were waiting in a row, things might look different, but when you are but a simple mortal thirsting for knowledge, seventy-five-cent salts and peppers scarcely fill the void. You long for the man with the megaphone: "In this corner of the garden may be seen ," etc. However , whether or not anyone likes the methods of the information bureau, a fair, think- ing person must acknowledge that the seemingly harsh notice: "Positively No Visitors Allowed. Warning! Any Person Entering or Trespassing on these Grounds will be Prosecuted," must have been absolutely forced upon a considerate host by an abusive mob of the idle curious. As he, himself, tells it: "No one could be more pleased to welcome the general public to my experiment grounds, but over six thousand visitors were received during the year 1904. All the important experimental work was delayed beyond recall, grounds overrun with crowds, from daylight to ten o'clock at night, no rest even on Sundays or holidays; business destroyed, rare plants died for want of care; attention constantly called from legitimate matters, letters neglected, telegrams delayed; meals taken standing, sleep disturbed, health at the point of destruction, visitors calling at all hours without regard to my own convenience, each one being under the fixed and unalter- able impression that he or she was the one particular one who should be admitted. Hence the order. The general public has no moral, legal, or other right to invade my grounds, home, private office or laboratories." So we see how fame has its drawbacks. It seems almost impossible to put the immeasurable good this man has done briefly. And it goes without saying that he grew into a celebrity, through years of patient, unseen toil. His invaluable work has recently

40 IMPROVEMENT ERA been acknowledged by the government at Washington, by an appropriation which leaves him free to go on with his experiments, while his family look after the business part of realizing from his wonderful improvements. At present he is still engaged in perfecting his spineless cactus. By studying a certain variable genus of cacti, the fact became clear that its ancestors had thrown out a foliage, and had been smooth-skinned. Stranded, in ages past, in a region fast becoming desert by the evaporation of some vast inland sea, the plants found it necessary to adapt themselves to severer seasons of heat and drought. They began by dropping their leaves, thus preventing evaporation. But another danger threatened, the danger of anni- BURBANK'S CACTUS, SANTA ROSA, CAL. hilation. This genus (the Opuntia) is almost wholly food and drink and greatly relished by all herbiverous animals" from a canary- bird to an elephant," and the little rudimentary leaves that its nature still threw out soon turned to swords for protection. "Per- haps nowhere," says Mr. Burbank, "in the whole vegetable king- dom, have such elaborate preparations been made. The punish- ment inflicted is immediate, the pain severe and lasting, often ending in death, so that all living things have learned to avoid the Opuntias as they do rattlesnakes, and notwithstanding their most delicious and nourishing fruit, produced unfailingly in great- est abundance, they have not been systematically improved by the

THE BIGGEST OF CALIFORNIA'S "GIANTS" 41 agriculturist and the horticulturist as their merits so well deserve." The fruit, according to the species, varies from the size of a peanut to a banana, and the single plant produces annually from fifty to two hundred pounds. Mr. Burbank argued that the cactus having once been spine- less, it could be so again. He obtained specimens from all over the world. The best of these he crossed. Then he kept crossing and crossing. Today the spineless cactus is achieved! The best of all about it is that, like Luther Burbank's other fixed, new species, it will never retrograde. It is the eternal march of the plant-life, onward and upward, that we are hoping for in the human sphere. The achievement of the best. The practical value of the spineless cactus is that millions of acres of desert land, heretofore looked upon as too sterile for hope, may now become the sources of vast revenue. Besides their great food value to cattle, their fruits and leaves furnish delicious jellies, jams, pickles and greens; the juice from the fruits of the crimson varieties is used for coloring ices, confectionery, etc.; the leaves make excellent poultices; the juice of both leaves and fruit is mixed with whitewash to make it more lasting when exposed to weather; etc., etc. Perhaps no better proof of the use of this discovery could be given than quoting an extract from one of the hundreds of letters that go to Mr. Burbank from the arid regions of the earth. The writer wishes seeds of the new cactus: "Because of the two famines of 1896-97, the population of India was lessened by twenty-one millions of souls. "I believe your work in developing an improved, edible cactus will mean much for the saving of life among the poverty-stricken millions of southern Asia. God bless you in your noble work." Burbank fruits, Burbank flowers, Burbank vegetables, and Burbank nuts, are growing steadily. Doubtless they will grow, like the little stone, till they fill the whole world. Dr. Hugo De Yries, a noted European scientist, engaged in plant experimentation, too, though his object is to prove the Darwinian theory,while Burbank's purpose is solely use and beauty, says of him: "Europe has no man like him. He is a unique, great genius Such a knowledge of nature, and such ability to handle plant-life, would only be possible to an innately high genius. The time will come when he will be as well-known and as highly cherished in California as he is now among the scientific men of Europe,"