More by Luther Burbank
When the wise plant developer goes into his garden or orchard... his eyes turn always first and foremost to the leaves...
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921)
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...
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921)
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.
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)
Cotyledons, How Plants are Trained to Work for Man, Vol. 5, Gardening (1921) p. 74.
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.
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)
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.
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921)
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.
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921)
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.
How Plants are Trained to Work for Man (1921)
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