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America’s Greatest Horticulturist Left Behind a Plum Mystery

Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura

Luther Burbank, at one of his experimental farms in 1901.
Luther Burbank, at one of his experimental farms in 1901.

Luther Burbank was America’s most legendary horticulturist. At the turn of the 20th century, he developed hundreds of new fruit, vegetable, and flower varieties, creating marvels such as the Shasta daisy and the Santa Rosa plum.

If America had a national plant, it might be the his blight-resistant russet Burbank potato, which alleviated the lingering effects of the Irish famine and makes up McDonald’s French fries today.

The media portrayed Burbank as a saintly, botanical wizard. For decades, thousands of people traveled to his Santa Rosa home, trying to catch a glimpse of him at work. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford sought his friendship, and after his death, both Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera painted him. Around his grave at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens, the plants he pioneered are still growing, watched over by garden curator Rachel Spaeth.

During Burbank’s life, his home became a tourist attraction. Brück & Sohn Kunstverlag Meißen/Public Domain

Despite all the press and acclaim, much of Burbank’s work remains mysterious—a problem that Spaeth, who has worked at the Burbank Home for a decade, has set out to solve. Once Burbank died, much of his knowledge was lost. Burbank was a terrible notetaker and an untrained scientist; he rarely recorded his process of creation as he developed plants that were sold through nurseries and seed catalogues. He also had good reason not to advertise the genetic makeup of his plants: In the early 20th century, there was no way to patent them.

“A man can patent a mousetrap or copyright a nasty song,” Burbank once groused. “But if he gives to the world a new fruit that will add millions to the value of earth’s annual harvests, he will be fortunate if he is rewarded by so much as having his name connected with the result.”

This created a challenge that Spaeth is facing. By sorting through what Burbank left behind, Spaeth hopes to uncover the lost parentage of his plums, the fruit which Burbank worked with more than any other.

Rachel Spaeth, the Luther Burbank Home and Garden’s curator. Courtesy of the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens

For a botanist and biologist such as Spaeth, it’s more necessary than ever to decipher Burbank’s work. In the event of plant disease or a changing climate, knowing the parents of popular varietals could help future horticulturists develop heartier new varieties. “It’s a big part of food security,” she says. She’s long admired Burbank, once strolling through his gardens every day on her way to work. But also, she tells me, there’s an undeniable impulse to continue Burbank’s work, with the same genetic material he used. She hopes to develop new plums, and even examine more of Burbank’s plants outside of the fruit. The Burbank gardens are still packed with his experiments, many of them genetic anomalies.

As garden curator, Spaeth is uniquely situated for research on Burbank. Their backgrounds even have some similarities. As children, they both grew up in the East: She in rural Pennsylvania, he in Massachusetts. Both were influenced by their families’ gardens. Part of living where she did, Spaeth tells me, meant a diet of mostly homegrown fruits and vegetables.

The Santa Rosa plum, another one of Burbank’s developments. Courtesy of the Luther Burbank…

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