CHAPTER XIV.

HORTICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT.

No history of the California of the new time would be complete without more than a passing reference to the achievements of modern horticulture, led by Luther Burbank, known everywhere as the wizard of the vegetable world. A California correspondent of an eastern publication put the case right when he said:

"Luther Burbank is the most famous citizen of California. This is not saying that he is famous in California, for to say that would not be strictly true. Everybody has heard of the Burbank potato, and millions have eaten that product of this man's genius, but that is all they know about it. Those who know that the best potato in the world bears the name of the man who produced it are content to let their knowledge rest there. They do not know, and probably they do not care to know, that Luther Burbank has improved nearly all the varieties of the chief horticultural products of California-that he is wise in the production of valuable hybrids and combinations, and that he is constantly experimenting for the production of things that will please and benefit his fellow man. Luther Burbank is little known in his own parish, but abroad he is honored as a benefactor and reverenced as a supreme authority in the work that he is doing. Thus is the prophet not without honor, save in his own country."

Despite the fact that there is much truth in the writer's conclusions, Luther Burbank's work has had a far-reaching effect throughout California and the west, and his example has encouraged many undertakings of wide importance. Much of the enthusiasm of horticulturists today owes its origin to the fact that Burbank lives in California and here works his miracles with the forces of nature; that in this genial home of growing things he is freed from the rigors of winter and the excesses of humid heat. That his work has been taken up and aided with earnestness by the Carnegie board, and that he will be free to pursue his work without the interruptions of business augurs much for the future of horticulture in California.

While California was still a Mexican province David Douglas, a famous Scotch botanist and plant discoverer, found and described some of the wonderful wild bulb-gardens of the Pacific coast. This was as long ago as 1827, and from that time to 1833 he found many bulbs and sent them to England. They were grown and exhibited at fairs, where they were admired and regarded as very wonderful. Not much was done for a long time, however, toward studying and classifying the plants of the country. condition has been aptly described by Charles Howard Shinn in an article in "the Land of Sunshine," from which we are permitted to quote, thus:

The

"These glowing expectations were doomed to a long disappointment, for there was then no Carl Purdy to study the habits and surroundings of the native bulbs, week in and week out, at all seasons, in all parts of California, and so to master his subject as to be able to simplify their undoubtedly difficult culture, finally making it practicable in both Europe and America to grow these most beautiful plants as easily as anemones, tulips and hyacinths. Importation after importation had failed utterly, and European gardeners had given up the effort until hardly a catalogue ventured to list these shy, wild bulbs of California; even when a few species appeared, it was without cultural directions, and at prices which kept them beyond the reach of the average purse.

"Now, this was not a small matter, though it might easily seem so to a casual observer. Here was a neglected industry; here was a very large group of many genera and species of bulbous-rooted plants, natives of the Pacific coast, quite lost sight of, while the bulb-flora of regions like South Africa was receiving all possible attention from collectors, dealers, growers and plant-breeders.

"The work of making this neglected class of plants widely known required peculiar qualities, a combination, in brief, of the equipments of fieldbotanist, horticulturist and business organizer. During the last twenty years, a very interesting Californian, Carl Purdy of Ukiah, has built up connections all over the world, has created a trade in Pacific coast bulbs, has made an enviable reputation at home and abroad as a specialist upon their culture and botany, and is now working, with Luther Burbank of Santa Rosa, to develop new races of California hybrid and cross-bred lilies. More than this, he is steadily developing unthought-of possibilities in the way of culti

vating species of exotic bulbs here, so that California, under his guidance, bids fair to become more of a world's bulb-garden than Holland or the Channel Isles-and bulb-growing represents one of the very highest arts of intensive horticulture.

"Carl Purdy was born at Dansville, Michigan, March 16, 1861. His ancestors on both sides were among the first settlers in colonial Connecticut. When he was only four years old, his parents 'crossed the plains' by the old emigrant trail, stopping for a time at Truckee Meadows, Nevada. But in 1870 the family settled down in fertile and beautiful Ukiah Valley, in the heart of Mendocino county, and here the boy grew up, fought his way to a fair education, was for a time a school teacher, married a very helpful and attractive wife, and little by little took up his life work, this new bulb-culture, which may possibly prove to be the occupation of his family for several generations to come.

"The first distinct view that we obtain of this tall, gray-eyed California boy, back in the seventies, is that of a faithful little toiler, 'making garden' for an elder sister, and visiting a famous old Glasgow Scotchman, Alexander McNab, who had made his home in the valley and was a notable flowerlover, receiving rare plants and seeds from every part of the world. The broad, thinly-settled valley and the dull, narrow-hearted village seemed to offer little or nothing to keep any boy there; others left to look for wider activities. But this boy held on, quietly, patiently, weaving his web of life in the land where he belonged, and that, as I take it, is much to his credit. At the age of eighteen he was teaching a small country school.

"About this time (1879) some American firm of seedsmen wrote to Mr. McNab asking if native bulbs could not be obtained. He turned the letter over to the young school teacher, and the latter sent a pressed Calochortus flower, and afterward sold "a hundred bulbs for $1.50," the beginning of a business that gradually increased until by 1888 school teaching was given up, and at the present time Mr. Purdy gives most of his attention to the business, distributes yearly something like a quarter of a million native bulbs to European and American wholesalers, employs a number of assistant collectors, and has become recognized as the greatest living authority on Pacific coast bulbs. Nevertheless the bulk of his business is done with a few large firms, and he sells few bulbs in California, for as yet there is hardly any demand