Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/337

Rh My wish to see him was, however, met with the greatest cordiality. Others had naturally the same desire, and we were consequently all invited to come together to Santa Rosa, where Burbank lives, and to inspect, under his personal guidance, his experimental plots. He set apart an evening and a whole day for our visit. How many crossings and selections he had to sacrifice for this I do not know. Our party was a rather large one. There was first Professor Svante Arrhenius — the man who with van't Hoff laid the foundation of modern physical chemistry. Among all the savants I ever had the fortune to meet, he certainly is the man with the widest knowledge and the broadest interests, and his opinion about Burbank's methods was of the greatest value to all of us. In our party was also the physiologist, Jacques Loeb, the discoverer of many important phenomena in regard to fertilization in lower animals. His studies have led him to the question of the causes of life and of those life-functions which give animals and plants their characteristics, expressed in the differences of kinds and varieties. These characteristics can not be studied to advantage except by means of hybridizing. So far no one in the whole world has made crossings on a larger scale than Burbank, and it was only natural that there should be many points in common between the studies of both these men. Our party was under the guidance of Professors Wickson and Osterhout, of the University of California. Both are personal friends of Burbank and, notwithstanding the distance, often visit him to keep posted on the progress of his work.

Americans, and especially Californians, feel a great deal of pride in their Burbank. He is a very modest man; he does not work for fame, or for honor, or for the acquisition of wealth. He has none of the aspirations of a merchant. He loves his plants, and is enthusiastic over his work and plans. To accomplish something great for his country is his ideal. For his personal self he is satisfied if his work furnishes him a living and enough to carry on his experiments.

In outward appearance Burbank is a very plain man, more a gardener than a savant, with clear blue sparkling eyes, full of life and fun, appreciating humor in others, telling us stories that kept us constantly laughing. He lives in a small house with his mother and sister, and has but one servant on the place, as he does most of the work personally. The walls of his room are covered with small photographs of his victories, and during our visit these pictures were taken down and demonstrated to us.

As a matter of course prunes interest him more than anything else. Of the hundreds of thousands, which he got by crossing, a few are already in the market. To give an idea of the interest connected with such a new kind I may only name the Waynard plum. This is a delicious, big and round, dark blue fruit with a taste that makes one think