Luther Burbank

Sunday, March 7th, is the birth date for the American scientist, Luther Burbank. He began growing a garden while still in secondary school to support his widowed mother. His curiosity led him to experiment with plants...

The Burbank potato is named for him. His white blackberry is so transparent that its small seeds can be seen. One of his most interesting creations is the plumcot, offspring of a Japanese plum and the apricot. He produced a plum that tastes like the Bartlett pear. He also developed the pomato by selection from the fruit of the potato. It grows on the potato vine but resembles a small tomato! Burbank's great Shasta daisy probably arouses the most interest of the several hundred new ornamental plants he developed. The Shasta daisy is the offspring of the English daisy, the wild American daisy, and their white Japanese cousin.

Luther Burbank was so well known for his horticultural accomplishment in his adopted state of California, that Arbor Day became known as Burbank Day.

On March 7, 1911, the school children of Santa Rosa made Mr. Burbank a pledge and had it written out and framed for him. It read:

"Today, as part of our Arbor Day exercises and in honor of one who is, we know, a sincere friend of birds and trees, we pledge ourselves to befriend all of God's creatures, to protect the birds, and not to destroy maliciously trees or any of the other beauties of nature."