New Creations in Plant Life: an Authoritative Account of the Life and Work of Luther Burbank

Abstract

THERE is something to be said in favour of this work; at the same time we imagine no one will have more cause to regret its appearance than Mr. Burbank himself. The reasons for this expression of opinion are easily supplied. It is decidedly desirable that the outside public should be made aware of the enormous practical importance of what is called plantbreeding, and that they should be familiarised with the means and methods adopted by experts for the multiplication and improvement of flowers, fruits, and other vegetable products. A slightly increased percentage of sugar in the sugar-cane or the beet, an apparently trifling improvement in the staple of cotton, the development of a potato relatively immune to fungous diseases, an increased production of fruit or the introduction of hardier varieties, of some that are earlier, of others that are later, to say nothing of the improvement of flowers in form, colour, and perfume, are all points of great importance and of very great interest from a biological point of view.

New Creations in Plant Life: an Authoritative Account of the Life and Work of Luther Burbank.

By W. S. Harwood. Pp. xiv + 368; 50 illustrations. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.) Price 7s. 6d. net.