Luther Burbank

Luther Burbank, born March 7, 1849, in Lancaster, Massachusetts, spent 55 years as a botanist and horticulturist, creating over 800 plant varieties. His work spanned fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. Among his most notable achievements were the Shasta daisy, the plumcot, and a spineless cactus bred for cattle feed. He also developed the "July Elberta" peach, the "Santa Rosa" plum, the "Flaming Gold" nectarine, the "Wickson" plum, the freestone peach, and the white blackberry. A natural mutation of his Burbank potato, with russet skin, became the russet Burbank potato—now the world's leading potato for food processing, especially in McDonald's french fries. This variety was created to help Ireland recover after the Great Famine, as it showed slight resistance to late blight.

Burbank grew up on a farm, the thirteenth of fifteen children, and attended Lancaster County Academy. After his father died when he was 18, he used his inheritance to buy 17 acres near Lunenburg, Massachusetts, where he developed the original Burbank potato. He sold the rights for $150 (about $4,398 today) and moved to Santa Rosa, California, in 1875. There, he bought 4 acres, built a greenhouse and nursery, and began crossbreeding experiments inspired by Charles Darwin's *The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication*. This site is now Luther Burbank Home and Gardens, a public park. He later added an 18-acre property in Sebastopol called Gold Ridge Farm.

Burbank gained fame through his plant catalogs, especially 1893's "New Creations in Fruits and Flowers," and through word of mouth and press coverage. That same year, Stark Bro's Nurseries discovered the 'Delicious' apple, which Burbank called "the finest-flavored apple in all the world." Clarence McDowell Stark visited Burbank in Santa Rosa, saw his experiments, and offered $9,000 for three of Burbank's new fruits, believing his critics were wrong. Burbank credited the Stark family for making his work profitable. He later joined Thomas Edison to support Paul Stark Sr. in lobbying for plant patent legislation. The Luther Burbank Society also helped by publishing his work and managing his business affairs.

From 1904 to 1909, the Carnegie Institution, backed by Andrew Carnegie himself, gave Burbank several grants for hybridization research, despite objections from advisers who considered his methods unscientific.

In his final weeks, Burbank suffered from gastrointestinal issues and violent hiccups. He died of heart failure on April 11, 1926, with his wife Elizabeth and his sister at his bedside. He was buried in an unmarked grave under a giant Cedar of Lebanon at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens in Santa Rosa. That tree no longer stands. After his death, the question of who would continue his work remained unanswered.