Book Description
his is volume two of an eight-volume set.

From the Author
"These eight volumes are not a compilation from the works or words of others, but a description of some of the results of actual work for the past fifty years among millions of living plants, including almost everyone known to growers and many thousand species never seen in cultivation, which have been discovered by hundreds of my collectors of seeds of wild plants from every part of the earth, most of whom (strangers to me) have sent these seeds in gratitude for the work accomplished here, or in exchange for seeds of my improved plants for the various climates from which the wild seeds came." "This work, if carried on extensively, requires constant daily and hourly attention, and these volumes have been mostly written on paper pads during the occasional wakeful hours of night, without light, and of course use of my eyes, which have always been too much occupied with experiments while daylight lasted." Luther Burbank Santa Rosa, California July 1, 1920

About the Author
Luther Burbank, botanist, naturalist, and plant breeder, was born in Lancaster, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on March 7, 1849. He was educated in the common schools and in a local academy. After a short experience in the agricultural implement manufactory he began market gardening and seed growing in a small way, one of his firsts and therefore now best known achievements being the development of the Burbank Potato from a selected seedling of the Early Rose. On October 1, 1875, he removed from Massachusetts to Santa Rosa, California, where he had lived ever since, devoting himself to the production of new forms of plants by crossing and selection. He was a member of various learned societies and for some years was lecturer on Plant Evolution at Stanford University. At the time of his death he had more than 3000 experiments under way and was growing more than 5000 distinct botanical species native to many parts of the world. His work stimulated worldwide interest in plant breeding. Burbank's primary concern was the development of new varieties of plants. His ability to perform experiments that produced plants with favorable characteristics depended more on his sense of intuition than on strict scientific methodology. However, Burbank was influenced by certain scientific theories, such as the formerly accepted theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics affirmed by Jean de Lamarck and others. Burbank's writings include Luther Burbank: His Methods and Discoveries (12 vol., 1914-15) and How Plants Are Trained to Work for Man (8 vol., 1921).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The fragrance of the flower was not put forth to please or displease man, but to please and attract the insect. In the case of the scented calla it was perfume that differentiated a particular individual from thousands of other individuals growing in the same plot.

At an early stage of Burbank's almost endless series of experiments in the hybridizing of plums, he chanced to hear of a so-called seedless plum that was said to grow in France, where it had been known for a long time as a curiosity. The fruit was by no means stoneless, but from the onset Burbank was convinced that by proper hybridizing and selective breeding it could be made valuable.

Species of plants in a state of nature are constantly crossing and new species are being developed under our eyes. Except by the accidental and most unusual transfer of a plant through the agency of a passing animal, there is hardly the remotest chance of effecting cross-fertilization between individual mosses or lichens or ferns growing in widely separated regions.