Luther Burbank Quotes
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Let me lay emphasis on the opportunity now presented in the United States for observing and, if we are wise, aiding in what I think it fair to say is the grandest opportunity ever presented of developing the finest race the world has ever known out of the vast mingling of races brought here by immigration.
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When the wise plant developer goes into his garden or orchard... his eyes turn always first and foremost to the leaves...
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There is not a single desirable attribute which, lacking in a plant, may not be bred into it. Choose what improvement you wish in a flower, a fruit, or a tree, and by crossing, selection, cultivation, and persistence you can fix this desirable trait irrevocably.
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In manufacturing food for its own cells, the plant is producing a supply of food that will be available for the sustenance of animal cells also. Thus the entire animal World may be said to be a vast parasitic colony as absolutely dependent upon the vegetable colony for its essential food supplies as any other parasite is dependent upon its host.
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The mere crossing of species, unaccompanied by selection, wise supervision, intelligent care, and the utmost patience, is not likely to result in marked good, and may result in vast harm. Unorganized effort is often most vicious in its tendencies.
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The essential basis of life itself, namely, protoplasm, is a substance composed largely of water and having the physical constitution of a viscid liquid.
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No one at all understands why it is possible for the plant cell that bears within its substance one of these green chlorophyll bodies to combine certain inorganic elements into nutritious foods, a feat that no human chemist can perform.
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Those who are making history seldom have time to record it.
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The plant laboratories in which this wonderful and vitally essential transformation is effected are chiefly located in the leaf of the plant... the thoughtful person must regard this structure-the most ordinary green leaf of tree or shrub or vine or the tiniest blade of grass-as in some respects the most wonderful thing in the world.
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Nature has time without limit, but man has immediate need for better and still better food, houses and clothing, and our present state of civilization depends largely upon the improvements of plants and animals which have consciously and half-consciously been made by man, and future civilization must more and more depend upon scientific efforts to this end.
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The most interesting thing in the world, from the standpoint of animal economy-which of course includes human economy-is the wonderful laboratory or factory of the plant...
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In child rearing environment is equally essential with heredity.
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To the gardener who goes about his task with the right spirit must every plant appear as the most wonderful of laboratories in which miracles of transformation, outmatching the utmost feats of the most skillful conjurer, are being performed every hour.
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During the course of many years of investigation into the plant life of the world, creating new forms, modifying old ones, adapting others to new conditions, and blending still others, I have constantly been impressed with the similarity between the organization and development of plant and human life.
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It is increasingly necessary to impress the fact that there are two distinct lines in the improvement of any race: the environment which brings individuals up to their best possibilities; the other, ten thousand times more important and effective, selection of the best individuals through a series of generations.
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Sex is not a necessary attribute of all living things.. it is a most necessary attribute if progress in evolution of new forms is to occur, as they have progressed through the ages and as we now see them progressing on this planet.
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Power to vary in plants or animals is itself a feature as readily transmissible as is stability of character. The quality of varying to meet varying environments is therefore one of the hereditary traits which the plant breeder must consider, and which may itself be extended or overcome by the processes of crossing and selection.