Luther Burbank (March 7, 1849 – April 11, 1926),[1] an American botanist, horticulturist, and pioneer in agricultural science, developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career.

Burbank's most successful strains and varieties included the Shasta daisy, the fire poppy (note possible confusion with the California wildflower, Papaver californicum, which is also called a "fire poppy"), the "July Elberta" peach, the "Santa Rosa" plum, the "Flaming Gold" nectarine, the "Wickson" plum (named after the agronomist Edward J. Wickson), the freestone peach, and the white blackberry.

[8] Burbank became known through his plant catalogs, the most famous being 1893's "New Creations in Fruits and Flowers," and through the word of mouth of satisfied customers, as well as press reports that kept him in the news throughout the first decade of the century.

To Clarence's great dismay, he saw that Luther Burbank was operating a small seed and nursery business in an attempt to finance his experiments and provide himself a living.

[13] Gastrointestinal complications and violent hiccups weakened Luther in the last two weeks before his death, which was ultimately caused by heart failure.

The famous botanist was buried in an unmarked grave, under a giant Cedar of Lebanon at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens in Santa Rosa, California.

Before his death in April 1926, Luther Burbank spoke quietly to his wife, and said: "If anything happens to me, you will have to dispose of the business and the work, because you can't go on with it.

He left everything to Elizabeth: money, personal property, real estate, dozens of municipal utility bonds — and the plants and precious seeds.

A September 6, 1927, contract provided exclusive rights to sell uncompleted experiments with fruits at Sebastopol (except the Royal and Paradox) for 10 years.

[9] Exciting new kinds of fruits and flowers Burbank had developed (but never marketed) included 120 types of plums, 18 peaches, 28 apples, 500 hybrid roses, 30 cherries, 34 pears, 52 gladioli and many more.

The gardens include a thornless rose, spineless cactus, rainbow corn, a hybrid mulberry tree (which Luther hoped would spark an American silk industry) and his red combustion plant (Euonymus alatus).

Burbank created hundreds of new varieties of fruits (plum, pear, prune, peach, blackberry, raspberry); potato, tomato; ornamental flowers and other plants.

A white blackberry so clear that one could see the seeds inside, a juicy and large plum which is still considered one of the finest in the world, a spineless cactus,[18] and a calla lily with fragrant odor[19] were among his many creations.

Purdue University professor Jules Janick, writing in the 2004 World Book Encyclopedia, says: "Burbank cannot be considered a scientist in the academic sense."

Although Burbank may not have been a scientist by the standards of his peers, his lack of record keeping reflected the difficulties of developing and distributing cultivars in the era in which he lived.

In it, he advocated improved treatment of children, cultural homogenization and replacement in education, and management of reproduction and development in both a eugenic and euthenic manner, though he does not directly reference either.

His support for eugenic methods is couched in his horticultural methodology and he makes direct analogies between the two, comparing the population of the United States to a massive outcrossing experiment: We are more crossed than any other nation in the history of the world, and here we meet the same results that are always seen in a much-crossed race of plants: all the worst as well as all the best qualities of each are brought out in their fullest intensities.

The detection of the usefulness of heterosis for plant breeding has led to the development of inbred lines that reveal a heterotic yield advantage when they are crossed.

… I have come to find in the crossing of species and in selection, wisely directed, a great and powerful instrument for the transformation of the vegetable kingdom along lines that lead constantly upward.

[21] This belief in the benefit of crossing human "species" and his staunch support for Lamarckian inheritance[14] put him somewhat at odds with mainstream eugenic views of the time, which were in the majority strongly anti-miscegenation.

His Lamarckian belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics informed his support for population improvement primarily by managing the environment of children over many generations, which aligned him also with the euthenics movement.

[21]Classical plant breeding uses deliberate interbreeding (crossing) of closely or distantly related individuals to produce new crop varieties or lines with desirable properties.

What a joy life is when you have made a close working partnership with Nature, helping her to produce for the benefit of mankind new forms, colors, and perfumes in flowers which were never known before; fruits in form, size, and flavor never before seen on this globe; and grains of enormously increased productiveness, whose fat kernels are filled with more and better nourishment, a veritable storehouse of perfect food—new food for all the world's untold millions for all time to come.

In September 1905 a group of California's most influential businessmen, intellectuals, and politicians gathered at a banquet thrown in honor of Luther Burbank by the State Board of Trade.

"[26] At the same convention, Albert G. Burnett, a judge of the Superior Court for Sonoma County stated that Burbank had improved the community incredibly making it a place that people came "to sit at the feet of this great apostle and prophet of beauty and happiness ... and catch some measure of his matchless inspiration."

"[26] In 1924 Burbank wrote a letter endorsing the "Yogoda" training system of Paramahansa Yogananda as a superior alternative to what he considered narrowly intellectual education offered by most schools.

[27] He caused a great deal of public controversy[28] a few months before his death in 1926 when he answered questions about his deepest beliefs by a reporter from the San Francisco Bulletin with the following statement: I am an infidel today.

Burbank had received Kriya Yoga initiation from Paramahansa Yogananda, and he is quoted as saying "I practice the technique devoutly, Swamiji...Sometimes I feel very close to the infinite power...then i have been able to heal sick persons around me, as well as many ailing plants".

Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Experiment Farm is listed in the National Register of Historic Places a few miles west of Santa Rosa in the town of Sebastopol, California.

The home that Luther Burbank was born in, as well as his California garden office, were moved by Henry Ford to Dearborn, Michigan, and are part of Greenfield Village.