File:Luther Burbank- his methods and discoveries and their practical application. Prepared from his original field notes covering more than 100,000 experiments made during forty years devoted to plant (14781917431).jpg

Identifier: lutherburbankhis04burbuoft (find matches)
Title: Luther Burbank: his methods and discoveries and their practical application. Prepared from his original field notes covering more than 100,000 experiments made during forty years devoted to plant improvement, with the assistance of the Luther Burbank Society and its entire membership, under the editorial direction of John Whitson and Robert John and Henry Smith Williams
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Burbank, Luther, 1849-1926 John, Robert Whitson, John Williams, Henry Smith, 1863-1943 Luther Burbank Society
Subjects: Plant-breeding
Publisher: New York Luther Burbank Press
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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made the fruit popular,and with the added property of keeping overwinter. Other possibilities of pear development lyinga little farther in the future and therefore some-what more vaguely outlined, have to do with thehybridization of the pear with the allied fruits ofrelated species. It is well-known that the pearshows, in this regard, a strong disinclination forentering into such an alliance. The pear may begrafted on the quince but it is usually consideredimpossible to graft it on the apple. I successfully carried out such a grafting ex-periment, however, when I was a boy in Massa-chusetts, the cion being a Seckel pear. But al-though this grafted cion bore fruit for two sea-sons, it then died, probably because of the imcon-geniality of the alliance. This experiment shows that there is not com-plete antagonism between the two species; andthe same thing is further demonstrated by thewell-known fact that the apple may be grafted onthe pear stock; although here also the alliance is
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Image Caption:
The Ideal Pear
This is the pear which represents the culmination of Mr. Burbank's many years of experiment with this fruit. It will be seen that the best qualities of the seedlings shown in the earlier illustrations have been combined to produce a pear that is of ideal shape, large in size, and beautifully colored. When we add that the flesh of this pear is of corresponding quality, it will be plain that the fruit justifies the name of "The Test," under which it was introduced.
Text Appearing After Image:
LUTHER BURBANK not likely to prove fruitful and satisfactory.But of course grafting is only an incidentaladjunct of the work of the plant developer. Theimpulse to progress must come through hybridiza-tion and selection. Here, it appears to me, thereare great possibilities. I have hybridized the pearand the apple; also the pear and the quince. Theseedlings from these unions have sometimesseemed thrifty, but were always infertile. Theywere highly interesting none the less. The most successful cross was obtained by us-ing the pollen of the Bartlett pear upon theGravenslein apple. The seedlings from this cross were divergent inappearance, and variable as to growth. One ofthe seedlings grew fully as fast as the ordinaryapple seedling, but most of them had a sickly,dwarfed appearance, and some died after havingmade a foot of growth. Three or four of those thatlived were grafted on an apple tree. They main-tained moderate growth for several years, butwere never healthy or vigorous, and never

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