Luther Burbank, perhaps the most prolific plant breeder in human history, was born on March 7, 1849, in Lancaster, Massachusetts (died 1926). Although he had very little formal education and was considered un-scientific by his peers, he managed to revolutionize American horticulture during the first decades of the 20 Century.
Burbank was raised on a farm, the 13 of 15 children in the family. He was a curious and resourceful child, inventing machines and tools to ease the work of the farm. His father died when Burbank was 21, allowing him to use his inheritance to buy a small farm of his own and begin plant-breeding experiments. His success began with a potato whose seeds he planted, then chose the most promising and quickly grew large, firm potatoes. With the $150 profit from selling the resulting seeds, he moved to Santa Rosa, California, to be near several brothers who lived there.
He began experimenting with plant varieties in earnest on his small tract in Santa Rosa. His talent for selecting superior plants combined with his skill at grafting, allowed him to make rapid progress in evaluating and replicating desired strains. At one time, he had 3,000 experiments in progress. He marketed his new plants through a catalogue, “New Creations in Fruits and Flowers,” beginning in 1893.
During his long 55-year career as a plant breeder, he introduced more than 800 new types of plants—fruits, nuts, grains, vegetables and flowers. He developed a russet potato, now called the Russet Burbank Potato, that today comprises most of the commercial potatoes used in the United States. He developed a spineless cactus for use as livestock forage in dry climates. He bred the Shasta daisy.
Burbank became friends with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, like him innovators in their fields of endeavor. After Burbank’s death in 1926, Edison and Ford continued to fight for patent protection for plant breeds, eventually achieving a law that extended patents to plants in 1930; Burbank received several patents posthumously to celebrate that event.
Read MoreApril is Keep America Beautiful Month
Back in 1971, The Keep America Beautiful organization teamed up with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to create Keep American Beautiful Day. It was expanded in 1982 to a week, and then to the entire month of April in 1984. As spring takes hold of the weather and the landscape awaken with the greening of trees and grasses, the blooming of wildflowers and the melodies of nesting songbirds, we, too, ought to take special notice of our beautiful environment—and do something to, as they say, keep it beautiful.
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