I See by the Papers...

Luther Burbank was clearly peeved when the reporter asked for comment on whether his greatest achievement was actually a failure.

At issue was a government pamphlet released a month earlier, at the close of 1907. The topic was the prickly pear cactus, also known as genus Opuntia, also known as Burbank's most profitable plant creation ever. The government experts were envious, Burbank told the reporter, because he had beaten them in developing a fast-growing spineless variety that had ten times the nutritional value of the regular plant.

The spineless cactus was Burbank's moon shot - an odyssey with the goal of creating a hybrid that would be as important to mankind as his namesake potato. Worthless deserts would become valuable pastures and croplands; the fields once used to grow animal fodder like alfalfa could now feed the world's hungry. It was his longest running project (a photograph in the Library of Congress collection shows Burbank tending a cactus seed bed c. 1890) and one that he called "soul-testing."




 The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott