Sonoma County CA Archives Biographies.....Burbank, Luther 
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com October 30, 2010, 2:14 pm

Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages  91 - 92
Author: The Lewis Publishing Company

     LUTHER BURBANK. "You'll have to pump me. I'm not very good at saying 
things."

     That was Luther Burbank's remark to an interviewer who some years ago 
journeyed from New York to get the story of the man internationally famous for 
the development of new forms of plant life through the process of selection 
and cross fertilization. From 1875 until his death April 11, 1926, Luther 
Burbank lived at Santa Rosa, utterly unspoiled by his world fame or by the 
fact that his name had taken its place for all time in the history of science 
and human progress. His life was as simple, as studious, as complete as it was 
when he first began the experiments that made him famous.

     He may not have been very good at saying things. Patient scientists, 
close to the profound mysteries of nature, are not often glib talkers. But 
Luther Burbank was a wizard at doing things. He was the chief assistant to 
nature. Almost every day we reap the benefits of his years of toil and uncanny 
insight into the processes of evolution. The food we eat — the Burbank potato, 
many new varieties of fruits and berries, grains and vegetables — we owe to 
Luther Burbank. The flowers we see — the Shasta daisy, many new and lovely 
roses, giant calla lilies, gigantic forms of amaryllis — are his creations. At 
the time he had 2,600 experiments under way and was growing 5,000 distinct 
botanical specimens.

     In his field he was unquestionably the greatest man who ever lived. He 
paved the way for everyone else who followed him. His work was so strikingly 
original that the academic scientists, always afraid of the new, did not 
accept him within their cloister. David Starr Jordan, after a thorough study 
of Burbank's methods, silenced his academic critics when he said: "Burbank 
belongs in the class of Farady and the long array of self-taught great men who 
lived while the universities were spending their strength on fine points of 
grammar and hazy conceptions of philosophy. If his place is outside the temple 
of science, there are not many of the rest of us who will be found fit to 
enter."

         It was in 1875 that Burbank established a nursery at Santa Rosa, 
after a severe struggle against poverty. In 1893 he gave up a profitable 
business and decided to devote himself to experimenting, using up his none too 
ample capital in his work. In every sense he was self reliant, and 
independent, working practically along lines that have never before been 
thought of except as vague theory. He was never financed by university or 
scientific institute. Yet he did more for science and for humanity than any 
body of scientists in the same field.

     In person he was calm, poised and utterly democratic. He had the supreme 
courage of being able to say: "I do not know." He never replied to his 
critics, except by going on with his work — the unanswerable reply. Even when 
accused of charlatanism by those whose lack of imagination limited their 
perception, he said nothing. But what he did was a complete refutation and an 
utter confounding of the critics.

     In the final years of his life he continued to work. His home at Santa 
Rosa was a Mecca for scientists from every country in the world. —By Eric 
Howard.

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