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Luther Burbank
Born March 7, 1849 - Died April 11, 1926
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Selected Quotations from Luther Burbank
During a lifetime devoted to plant breeding, Luther Burbank
developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants,
including 113 varieties of plums and prunes, 10 commercial
varieties of berries, and 50 varieties of lilies.
Born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, Burbank was brought up on a
farm and received only an elementary education. At age 21 he
purchased a 17-acre tract near Lunenberg, Massachusetts, and
began a 55-year plant breeding career that spanned a lifetime.
In 1871 he developed the Burbank potato, which was introduced
in Ireland to help combat the blight epidemic. He sold the rights
to the Burbank potato for $150, which he used to travel to Santa
Rosa, California. In Santa Rosa, where three of his brothers had
already settled, he established a nursery garden, greenhouse, and
experimental farms that have become famous throughout the world.
He worked by effecting multiple crosses of foreign and native
strains to obtain seedlings, which he grafted onto fully
developed plants for rapid assessment of hybrid characteristics.
He carried on his plant hybridization and selection on a huge
scale. At any one time he maintained as many as 3,000 experiments
involving millions of plants. In his work on plums, he tested
about 30,000 new varieties. The Plant Patent Act of 1930 amended
U.S. patent law to permit protection of new and distinct
varieties of asexually reproduced plants, other than
tuber-propagated plants. This legislation resulted from the
growing awareness that plant breeders had no financial incentive
to enter plant breeding because they could not exercise control
over their discoveries. In supporting this legislation, Thomas A.
Edison testified:' This (bill) will, I feel sure, give us many
Burbanks.'
Plant Patent Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 41, 65, 66, 235,
266, 267, 269, 290, 291, and 1041 were issued to Burbank
posthumously.
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