What does the world call a man who turned the yellow flower into red, who made the seeds of plums disappear, desert cactus to grow a thousand times faster, made blackberry into white, who grew 500 different kinds of cherries on one tree? Was he a master gardener or a miracle-working magician.
Fie has been awarded many title, but he was so simple, hardworking scientist.
The products of his genius continue to play a part in the day-to-day lives of people throughout the world. His most important contribution is a lovely flower that never existed before him.
He was born on 7th March 1849. Fie was attracted towards the wonders of nature and learned the techniques of growing various crops. After reading Darwin’s book, he decided to devote his life to grow new varieties of plants.
He started market gardening at the age of 21. He was successful in selling high-quality vegetable. He planted 29 seeds from an early rose potato plant and produced superior quality up to today. This potato is called “Idaho Potato”, it is grown on thousands of acres in North-Western U.S.
He moved to the State of California at the age of 26, because his native place was not suitable for his work. He carried on his experimental and original work on plants for more than half a century on “Santa Rosa” near San Francisco. He described his new home as “The Chosen Spot” of all this earth as for as nature was concerned.
The three basic techniques of his experiments are
1. collect different kinds of domestic plants and bring in many foreign varieties of plants, when they were grown under different conditions, they would prove strong, plentiful or hard, show other desirable changes.
2. He grew many varieties of fruits, flowers and vegetables by changing water, food, temperature, light or space variations were achieved by crossing plants, which had very dissimilar qualities.
3. He could recognize and select the plants which showed desirable changes. He could also choose them for further experiments.
Thus he was successful to produce a white blackberry and he called it the paradox. The pile of rejected seedlings measured 12 ft high, 14 ft wide,‘22 ft long and had contained 65,000 berry bushes. Among them he decided to keep for further study was less than 2 dozen.
He was able to grow 526 different types of apples on the same tree, ft was possible for him not only to save space but also to speed up his experiments. His experimented plants took only 2-3 years to yield fruits instead of 15 years.
He carried out more than 10,000 separate experiments with 600 different kinds of plants. He developed an improve cherry, a thornless blackberry, a cactus without thorns used as food for livestock and a peach tree that can withstand freezing weather. He delighted flower lovers with 73 new flowers, Shasta Daisy and a rose that bears his name.
Many of his efforts ended in failure. The crossing of tomato with potato was failed. But his devotion was so deep and strong that nothing could disappoint him. Miracles were happening in all the field like in steel mills, automobiles and markets of commerce and industry. Burbank’s discoveries are also as remarkable as the shiny cars, bridges, tunnels and singing wires.
