42 Facts About Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science.

Luther Burbank developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career.

Luther Burbank developed a spineless cactus and the plumcot.

The Russet Luther Burbank potato was in fact invented to help with the devastating situation in Ireland following the Great Famine.

Luther Burbank's father died when he was 18 years old, and Burbank used his inheritance to buy a 17-acre plot of land near Lunenburg center.

Luther Burbank sold the rights to the Luther Burbank potato for $150 and used the money to travel to Santa Rosa, California, in 1875.

Today, the Russet Luther Burbank potato is the most widely cultivated potato in the United States.

In Santa Rosa, Luther 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.

Luther Burbank became known through his plant catalogs, the most famous being 1893's "New Creations in Fruits and Flowers," and through the word of mouth of satisfied customers, as well as press reports that kept him in the news throughout the first decade of the century.

The oddly-shaped apple attracted the attention of Luther Burbank, a famed grafter and budder of trees, plants and flowers.

Luther Burbank often credited the Stark family with making his work profitable.

From 1904 through 1909, Luther Burbank received several grants from the Carnegie Institution to support his ongoing research on hybridization.

Luther Burbank was supported by the practical-minded Andrew Carnegie himself, over those of his advisers who objected that Burbank was not "scientific" in his methods.

Mrs Luther Burbank entered into an agreement with Stark Bro's on August 23,1927, to take the material they wanted from Luther Burbank's properties.

Exciting new kinds of fruits and flowers Luther Burbank had developed included 120 types of plums, 18 peaches, 28 apples, 500 hybrid roses, 30 cherries, 34 pears, 52 gladioli and many more.

The patents name Luther Burbank, deceased, as "inventor" by Elizabeth Waters Burbank, executrix of his estate.

Mrs Luther Burbank then dispersed the majority of the gardens for subdivision.

Luther Burbank sold the remaining property to the Santa Rosa Junior College for use as a training ground.

Luther Burbank created hundreds of new varieties of fruits ; potato, tomato; ornamental flowers and other plants.

Luther Burbank introduced over 800 new plants, including flowers, grains, grasses, vegetables, cacti, and fruits.

Luther Burbank was criticized by scientists of his day because he did not keep the kind of careful records that are the norm in scientific research and because he was mainly interested in creating useful or targeted cultivars rather than in the basic research of understanding their biology or the mechanisms by which his artificial selection schemes achieved their results.

In 1893, Luther Burbank published a descriptive catalog of some of his best varieties, entitled New Creations in Fruits and Flowers.

In 1907, Luther Burbank published an "essay on childrearing", called The Training of the Human Plant.

Luther Burbank experimented with a variety of techniques such as grafting, hybridization, and cross-breeding.

Luther Burbank was elected to the ABA's Committee on Eugenics in 1906.

Luther Burbank believed that environment played a crucial role in the development of children:.

Luther Burbank cross-pollinated the flowers of plants by hand and planted all the resulting seeds.

Luther Burbank then selected the most promising plants to cross with other ones.

Luther Burbank was praised and admired not only for his gardening skills but for his modesty, generosity and kind spirit.

Luther Burbank was very interested in education and gave money to the local schools.

Luther Burbank married twice: to Helen Coleman in 1890, which ended in divorce in 1896; and to Elizabeth Waters in 1916.

Luther Burbank had no children of his own but did adopt a daughter.

Luther Burbank's heart was fathomlessly deep, long acquainted with humility, patience, sacrifice.

Luther Burbank was highly revered throughout the United States of America.

In 1924 Luther Burbank wrote a letter endorsing the "Yogoda" training system of Paramahansa Yogananda as a superior alternative to what he considered narrowly intellectual education offered by most schools.

Luther Burbank caused a great deal of public controversy a few months before his death in 1926 when he answered questions about his deepest beliefs by a reporter from the San Francisco Bulletin with the following statement:.

In mid-March 1926, Luther Burbank suffered a heart attack and became ill with gastrointestinal complications.

Luther Burbank died on April 11,1926, aged 77, and is buried near the greenhouse at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens.

Luther Burbank's work spurred the passing of the 1930 Plant Patent Act four years after his death.

In 1931, while visiting San Francisco, Frida Kahlo painted a portrait of Luther Burbank emerging as a tree from his interred corpse.

In 1986, Luther Burbank was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

The home that Luther Burbank was born in, as well as his California garden office, were moved by Henry Ford to Dearborn, Michigan, and are part of Greenfield Village.