Luther Burbank was an American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science. He developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants over his 55-year career. Burbank’s varied creations included fruits, flowers, grains, grasses, and vegetables. He developed a spineless cactus and the plumcot.
He had only an elementary education but was always an avid reader. At the age of 19, he was profoundly impressed by Charles Darwin’s treatise. At 21, Burbank purchased a 17-acre plot of land. He went on to become one of history’s most inventive and productive breeders of plants.

Conducting as many as 3,000 experiments at once, Burbank painstakingly crossbred foreign and native species of plants, cultivated the resultant seedlings, and used grafting to arrive at new and better breeds. Burbank developed more than 800 new strains and varieties of plants, including 113 varieties of plums, 20 of which are still commercially important, especially in California and South Africa; 10 commercial varieties of berries; and more than 50 varieties of lilies.