GMOs and Luther Burbank
After a pretty rough week including my final days with Louie the cat I decided I could get away with recycling an old diary or two. One of my favorites was one I did on Luther Burbank in September, 2013. (Wow! We KTK editors have been at this for longer than I thought). After I decided to do this, a diary appeared here titled Neil deGrasse Tyson owes us an apology: GMOs just got real on NEJM which has 683 comments. Seeing an interest here, I present the Burbank diary, about a man who modified hundreds of plants without the GMO methods of today.
Luther Burbank
Recently I received a visit from Kossack jakedog42 and when he arrived he asked me about all the signs and street names referring to "Burbank" here in the Santa Rosa area. He of course knew about Luther Burbank the botanist but hadn't known that Santa Rosa was his home. He was and still is our most famous resident even though Charles Schultz also called this his home. I thought it might be interesting to reveal something about his life.
He was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1849 and with an inheritance from his father bought a small farm. There he developed the Burbank potato, the rights to which he sold for $150!! He used the money to travel to Santa Rosa where he continued his lifelong career of plant development and creativity. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. The potato he originally developed (due to a "sport" seed, became the Russet Burbank potato. Today, the Russet Burbank potato is the most widely cultivated potato in the United States. A large percentage of McDonald's french fries are made from this cultivar.
He later purchased an 18 acre farm in Sebastopol where he did his research. A portion of this has been preserved and is open to the public. Some of his original plant development can still be found there. Since my own farm is but a stone's throw away I especially love this quote:
"I firmly believe, from what I have seen,
that this is the chosen spot of all this earth
as far as Nature is concerned."
(March 7, 1849.) In California his birthday is celebrated as Arbor Day and trees are planted in his memory.
Luther Burbank, 1875
I must emphasize in how great a regard Mr. Burbank was held in the 19th century. He created such plants as the shasta daisy and the Santa Rosa plum. I have such a plum tree and all other plums pale in comparison. He was considered a gentle, kindly man and from this speech it confirms this.
In a speech given to the First Congregational Church of San Francisco in 1926, Burbank said:
I love humanity, which has been a constant delight to me during all my seventy-seven years of life; and I love flowers, trees, animals, and all the works of Nature as they pass before us in time and space. 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.
At one point he was visited by both Edison and Firestone (Of the tires).
Edison and Ford would go on camping trips along with naturalist John Burroughs, botanist Luther Burbank creator of the Russet Burbank potato, Harvey Firestone of Firestone tires and occasionally, President Harding.
There is a story that on one of these camping trips the men got into an accident on the way back. A farmer pulled the car from the mud with his old Model-T. Starting with Ford the men introduced themselves to the farmer as "the man who invented that tractor,""the man who made those tires,""the man who invented the lightbulb," and as the President of the United States". The farmer is supposed to have replied by pointing to Burbank and saying "and who is he, Santa Claus?"
One year ago I reported on the National Heirloom Exposition. This year's will take place September 9,10, and 11. As we did last year, we will be participating manning the Heifer International booth. I'll include a few photos here, showing what to expect. Many more photos are in last year's diary, cited above.
Chef Ray Duey carves fruits and vegetables into fantastic and beautiful shapes. You can watch as he does it, using only a small knife.
Peppers and tomatoes.
To end on a very positive note, my tomatoes have reached total ripeness, beyond prolific, and a taste I can be proud of. We are dehydrating, making chili and spaghetti sauce, and sharing. I'm taking a bunch to the vet's office tomorrow because they were so helpful during the last few weeks.
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