Luther Burbank: Plant Breeding Artist, Horticulturist, and Legend

Luther Burbank (1849–1926), the best-known horticulturist in the United States, was honored in 1940 by having a U.S. postage stamp in his honor—as a scientist! Burbank became a legend in his time as the plant inventor and horticultural wizard releasing a prodigious 800 new cultivars, a number of which are still being grown, the most famous being the ‘Burbank’ potato, the ‘Santa Rosa’ plum, and the ‘Shasta’ daisy. During his lifetime he was considered as a coequal with Henry Ford, inventor of the assembly line factory, and Thomas A. Edison, inventor of the light bulb and phonograph. Hugo de Vries, Liberty Hyde Bailey, and Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov visited him and lauded his operation. Burbank promoted the concept that plant breeding could be the basis of a business and his headquarters in Santa Rosa, CA, became world famous. He established a publication company to disseminate his work and was instrumental in the eventual passage of the Plant Patent Act of 1930. However, Burbank was not a scientist. Although a strong supporter of Darwin and the theory of natural selection, he did not understand the contributions of Mendel to genetics and breeding. He performed no experiments in the classical sense and his notes were fragmentary. In 1904, he received a large grant from the Carnegie Institution ($10,000 annually) to promote the scientific study of plant breeding, which was discontinued after 5 years when the reviewer, George Harrison Shull, determined that Burbank’s procedure was more art than science. However, Burbank is justly famous as a successful plant breeder. He intuitively followed the modern rationale of plant breeding by obtaining abundant diversity, using repeated and successive hybridization, and carrying out rigorous selection. Above all he had an eye and feel for plants. His success is an affirmation that plant breeding is an art as well as a science. As an innovative plant breeding artist, Luther Burbank remains an inspiration to plant breeders and horticulturists. Luther Burbank still remains the best known horticulturist in the United States and has become a legend as a plant wizard and inventor of plants. In 1940 he appeared on the U.S. postage stamp (Fig. 1) in the Famous Americans series along with John James Audubon (ornithologist and painter), Crawford W. Long (physician and anesthesiologist), Walter Reed (physician and epidemiologist), and Jane Addams (sociologist and reformer). Through his innumerable plant creations (over 800 releases), he became known as a plant breeder extraordinaire, and in his lifetime, he was thought of as the ‘‘high priest of horticulture’’ and the ‘‘plant wizard.’’ His charming personality endeared him to the public. Burbank appears in paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera and he was lionized in the popular press in innumerable articles. After his death, rights to his plant material were sold to Stark Brothers’ Nursery, which sold the vegetables and seed rights to Burpee Seed Company in 1931, where Burbank’s creations continued to be promoted to the public. In 1991 he was elected to the ASHS Hall of Fame and the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens was honored as an ASHS Horticultural Landmark in 2003. His life and career have been the subject of books and articles in the popular and scientific press including works by Peter Dreyer (1993), Walter Howard (1945, 1945–46), Jane S. Smith (2009), and Henry Smith Williams (1915), Williams et al. (1915). His position as a scientist has been critically reviewed by James Crow (2001) and Donald F. Jones (1937). Luther Burbank (Fig. 2) remains a horticultural enigma and this brief review of his life is an attempt to put his contributions to horticulture and plant breeding into perspective. A retrospective review of his accomplishments is the goal of this workshop. It includes papers entitled ‘‘Russet Burbank: No Ordinary Potato’’ by Charles R. Brown; ‘‘A Vast Array of Beauty: The Accomplishments of Luther Burbank, the Father of American Ornamental Plant Breeding,’’ by Neil O. Anderson and Richard T. Olsen; ‘‘Luther Burbank’s Plums’’ by David A. Karp; ‘‘21 Century Approach to Improving Burbank’s ‘Stoneless’ Plum’’ by Ann Callahan, Chris Dardick, and Ralph Scorza; ‘‘Luther Burbank’s Contributions to Walnuts’’ by John Preece and Gale H. McGranahan; and ‘‘Luther Burbank’s Berries’’ by Kim E. Hummer, Chad E. Finn, and Michael Dossett. These papers make clear that Luther Burbank is justly famous as an extraordinarily successful plant breeder. He intuitively followed the modern rationale of plant breeding by obtaining abundant diversity, using repeated and successive hybridization, and carrying out rigorous selection. He cannot be considered a scientist in the modern sense, but he was clearly a plant breeding artist for above all he had an eye and feel for plants. His success is an affirmation that plant breeding is as much an art as a science. As an innovative plant breeding artist, Luther Burbank remains an inspiration to plant breeders and horticulturists. Early years. Luther was born in Lancaster, MA, on 7 Mar. 1849, a son of Samuel Burbank, owner of a small brick factory, and his third wife, Olive Burpee Ross. Young Luther was educated at the Lancaster Academy. In the early 1870s, he obtained Darwin’s Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (published in the United States in 1869) from the local library and Burbank would later claim that it opened up a new world for him to create new plant varieties. At the same time he became interested in horticulture based on a book, Gardening for Profit, in the Market and Family Garden by Peter Henderson. In 1871 he purchased 17 acres of farmland in nearby Lunenburg where he planned to raise Fig. 1. Luther Burbank portrait in a 1940 U.S. postage stamp, one of five scientists of the Famous Americans series. Burbank is the only U.S. horticulturist so honored. Received for publication 15 July 2014. Accepted for publication 8 Aug. 2014. This paper was part of the workshop ‘‘Contributions of Luther Burbank: Plant Breeding Artist and Legend’’ held 22 July 2013 at the ASHS Conference, Palm Desert, CA, and sponsored by the ASHS History of Horticultural Science Working Group. To whom reprint requests should be addressed; e-mail [email protected]. HORTSCIENCE VOL. 50(2) FEBRUARY 2015 153 WORKSHOP