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Luther Burbank

30 quotes

“Those who are making history seldom have time to record it.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Word to the Reader, (July 1, 1920) How Plants are Trained to Work for Man: Plant breeding (1921) Vol. 1.
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A knowledge of Mendelism is recognized by me as only the ABC to the broader knowledge of heredity necessary for success in animal and plant improvement, and all variations and all mutations of every nature are responses to environment which, by repetition and combination, are slowly but surely fixed in heredity and at last made tangible, most often through the crossing of varieties, species, or genera, either by nature or that part of nature called man.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The richest soil that was ever prepared would not grow a single blade of grass or the tiniest Weed if that soil were absolutely dry. ...There must be water in the soil to dissolve out and transfer its elements in order that the rootlets of the plant shall be able to make the slightest use of these elements. ...But ...a plant may grow and thrive for a time quite without the presence of soil if its roots are placed in water. ... some of the richest soils in the world are those that are absolutely barren and fully merit the designation of desert lands because water is lacking”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The essential basis of life itself, namely, , is a substance composed largely of water and having the physical constitution of a viscid liquid.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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...”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When the wise plant developer goes into his garden or orchard... his eyes turn always first and foremost to the leaves...”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one at all understands why it is possible for the plant cell that bears within its substance one of these green bodies to combine certain inorganic elements into nutritious foods, a feat that no human chemist can perform.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pick out any trait you want in your child... By surrounding this child with sunshine from the sky and your own heart, by giving the closest communion with nature, by feeding this child well-balanced, nutritious food, by giving it all that is implied in healthful environmental influences, and by doing all in love, you can thus cultivate in the child and fix there for all its life all of these traits.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In child rearing environment is equally essential with heredity.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When certain hereditary tendencies are almost indelibly ingrained, environment will have a hard battle to effect a change in the child; but that a change can be wrought by the surroundings we all know. The particular subject may at first be stubborn against these influences, but repeated application of the same modifying forces in succeeding generations will at last accomplish the desired object in the child as it does in the plant.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But with those who are mentally defective—ah, here is the hardest question of all!—what shall be done with them? ...In the case of human beings in whom the light of reason does not burn... shall they be eliminated from the race? Go to the mother of an imbecile child and get your answer. ...For these helpless unfortunates, as with those who are merely unfortunate from environment, I should enlist the best and broadest state aid.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water-bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud-turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb, brooks to wade in, water-lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hay-fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of his education. By being well acquainted with all these they come into most intimate harmony with nature, whose lessons are, of course, natural and wholesome.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The plant, unlike the animal, has provided a special mechanism—a unique laboratory—through which it is able to manufacture from the crude salts in watery solution, with the aid of another element taken from the air, a new compound which will serve the protoplasmic cell with food. That is to say, the plant organism as a whole comprises a laboratory for compounding the crude elements, which by themselves cannot be used as nourishment, into a substance that can be used as nourishment. ...The plant is the only place in the world where foodstuffs are manufactured, and that no animal of any kind could live without nourishment that was originally manufactured by some plant, the vital importance of the matter will be manifest.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What takes place within the structure of the leaf, then, with the aid of the wonderful green workmen, is this: A certain number of molecules of water, brought to the leaf from root and stem, are taken in hand and compounded with a certain number of molecules of carbon extracted from the air that has been brought into the leaf laboratory through its mouths or ta from the outside atmosphere. When the compound has been effected, we still have the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen that composed the water molecules and the atoms of carbon, but they are so marvelously put together that they no longer constitute the liquid water or the gas in which the carbon was imported. They now constitute an altogether new substance which is termed sugar. Thus only three elements are dealt with and these very familiar ones. It would seem as if almost any chemist should be able to manage a simple combination like that. But... no human chemist knows how to manage it. There are forces to be invoked in effecting that combination of which no chemist has any knowledge. Only the chlorophyll grains in the plant leaf have learned the secret, and up to the present they have kept their secret well.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look at the material on which to draw. Here is the North, powerful, virile, aggressive, blended with the luxurious, ease-loving, more impetuous South. Again you have the merging of a cold phlegmatic temperament with one mercurial and volatile. Still again the union of great native mental strength, developed or undeveloped, with bodily vigor, but with inferior mind. See, too, what a vast number of environmental influences have been at work in social relations, in climate, in physical surroundings. Along with this we must observe the merging of the vicious with the good, the good with the good, the vicious with the vicious.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not be cross with the child; you cannot afford it. If you are cultivating a plant, developing it into something finer and nobler, you must love it, not hate it; be gentle with it, not abusive; be firm, never harsh. I give the plants upon which I am at work in a test, whether a single one or a hundred thousand, the best possible environment. So should it be with a child, if you want to develop it in right ways. Let the children have music, let them have pictures, let them have laughter, let them have a good time; not an idle time but one full of cheerful occupation. Surround them with all the beautiful things you can. Plants should be given sun and air and the blue sky; give them to your boys and girls. ...for all the years. We cannot treat a plant tenderly one day and harshly the next; they cannot stand it. Remember that you are training not only for to-day, but for all the future, for all posterity.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Here appears a child plainly not normal, what shall we do with him? Shall we, as some have advocated, even from Spartan days, hold that the weaklings should be destroyed? No. In cultivating plant life, while we destroy much that is unfit, we are constantly on the lookout for what has been called the abnormal, that which springs apart in new lines. How many plants are there in the world to-day that were not in one sense once abnormalities? No; it is the influence of cultivation, of selection, of surroundings, of environment, that makes the change from the abnormal to the normal. From the children we are led to call abnormal, may come, under wise cultivation and training, splendid normal natures.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Heredity is not the dark specter which some people have thought—merciless and unchangeable, the embodiment of Fate itself. This dark, pessimistic belief which tinges even the literature of to-day comes, no doubt, from the general lack of knowledge of the laws governing the interaction of these two ever-present forces of heredity and environment wherever there is life. My own studies have led me to be assured that heredity is only the sum of all past environment, in other words environment is the architect of heredity; and I am assured of another fact: acquired characters are transmitted and—even further—that all characters which are transmitted have been acquired...”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We may compare this sum of the life forces, which we call heredity, to the character of a sensitive plate in the camera. Outside pictures impress themselves more or less distinctly on the sensitive plate... Stored within heredity are all joys, sorrows, loves, hates, music, art, temples, palaces, pyramids, hovels, kings, queens, paupers, bards, prophets and philosophers, oceans, caves, volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, wars, triumphs, defeats, reverence, courage, wisdom, virtue, love and beauty, time, space, and all the mysteries of the universe. The appropriate environments will bring out and intensify all these general human hereditary experiences and quicken them again into life and action, thus modifying for good or evil, character—heredity—destiny.”
Luther Burbank (1849–1926) said by 1926 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source