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Luther Burbank on Plant and Human Evolution

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Brief overview

Luther Burbank's secret was love — in breeding plants and, he insisted, in educating children.

  1. Love, not only science, breeds better plantsBurbank said he talked to his cacti to create a vibration of love until they grew thornless.
  2. Education should be as fearless as plant breedingHe called for more numerous, more courageous innovations for children, as daring trials had improved fruits and flowers.
  3. A plant's will is harder to break than a child'sGenerations of crossing and patient selection change a fixed plant forever, while a child's nature is sensitive and pliable.
Executive Summary AI
  • Walking through his Santa Rosa garden, Luther Burbank told Yogananda that the secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love, and described talking to cacti until a thornless variety emerged, then plucking three leaves himself for the swami to plant at Mount Washington.
  • Burbank's first notable triumph was the large potato that carries his name, followed by hundreds of crossed improvements — tomato, corn, squash, cherries, plums, nectarines, berries, poppies, lilies, roses — and a walnut tree he brought to abundant nut production in sixteen years, half the time unaided nature would have needed.
  • Calling schools like Yogananda's the only hope of a future millennium, Burbank said he was in revolt against educational systems severed from nature and stifling of individuality, and gave Yogananda his book The Training of the Human Plant, arguing that a child's nature is far easier to reshape than a plant's tenacious will.
  • On later visits, amid the thousand letters horticulturists sent him and the drawer of travel folders he used for travelling, Burbank said he and Henry Ford both believed in reincarnation, told of practising his Kriya initiation devoutly, of feeling close to the infinite power and healing sick persons and plants, and helped Yogananda name his new magazine East-West, contributing an article on scien
  • Yogananda was in New York when Burbank died in 1926; he spent 24 hours in seclusion and then conducted a Vedic memorial rite with American students in Hindu ceremonial dress, and he closes with Burbank's letter of December 22, 1924 from Santa Rosa, endorsing the swami's how-to-live schools as coming as near to bringing the millennium as anything he knew.
Key Quote
“The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.”
— Luther Burbank
Key Quote
“you have nothing to fear i would tell them you don't need your defensive thorns i will protect you”
— Luther Burbank
Key Quote
“i see humanity now as one vast plant needing for its highest fulfilments only love”
— Luther Burbank

Transcript

0:00 CHAPTER XXXVIII. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda Luther Burbank, an American saint
0:27 The secret of improved plant breeding, apart from scientific knowledge, is love.
0:35 Luther Burbank uttered this wisdom as I walked beside him in his Santa Rosa garden.
0:40 We halted near a bed of edible cacti.
0:44 While I was conducting experiments to make spineless cacti he continued i often talked to the plants to create a vibration of love
0:54 you have nothing to fear i would tell them you don't need your defensive thorns i will protect you gradually the useful plant of the desert emerged in a thornless variety. I was charmed
1:08 at this miracle. Please, dear Luther, give me a few cacti leaves to plant in my garden at Mount
1:14 Washington. A workman standing nearby started to strip off some leaves. Burbank prevented him.
1:22 I myself will pluck them for the swami. He handed me three leaves,
1:26 which later I planted, rejoicing as they grew to huge estate. The great horticulturist told me that
1:33 his first notable triumph was the large potato, now known by his name. With the indefatigability
1:41 of genius, he went on to present the world with hundreds of crossed improvements on nature,
1:47 his new Burbank varieties of tomato, corn, squash, cherries, plums, nectarines, berries, poppies,
1:55 lilies, roses. I focused my camera as Luther led me before the famous walnut tree by which he had proved that natural evolution can be telescopically hastened. In only sixteen years, he said, this walnut tree reached a state of
2:13 abundant nut production to which an unaided nature would have brought the tree in twice that time.
2:20 Burbank's little adopted daughter came romping with her dog into the garden she is my human plant luther waved to her affectionately i see humanity now as one vast plant needing for its highest fulfilments only love
2:37 the natural blessings of the great outdoors and intelligent crossing and selection in the span of my own lifetime, I have observed such wondrous progress
2:47 in plant evolution that I look forward optimistically to a healthy, happy world,
2:53 as soon as its children are taught the principles of simple and rational living.
2:59 We must return to nature and nature's God. Luther, you would delight in my ranchy school with its outdoor classes and
3:08 atmosphere of joy and simplicity. My words touched the cord closest to Burbank's heart-child education.
3:17 He plied me with questions, interest gleaming from his deep serene eyes.
3:22 Swamiji, he finally said, schools like yours are the only hope of a future
3:27 millennium. I am in revolt against the educational systems of our time, severed from nature and
3:34 stifling of all individuality. I am with you heart and soul in your practical ideals of education.
3:41 As I was taking leave of the gentle sage, he autographed a small volume and presented it to me.
3:48 Here is my book on The Training of the Human Plant, he said.
3:52 New types of training are needed, fearless experiments.
3:56 At times the most daring trials have succeeded in bringing out the best in fruits and flowers.
4:01 Educational innovations for children should likewise become more numerous, more
4:06 courageous. I read his little book that night with intense interest. His eye envisioning a glorious
4:12 future for the race, he wrote, the most stubborn living thing in this world, the most difficult to
4:18 swerve, is a plant once fixed in certain habits. Remember that this plant has preserved its
4:24 individuality all through the
4:26 ages. Perhaps it is one which can be traced backward through eons of time in the very rocks
4:32 themselves, never having varied to any great extent in all these vast periods. Do you suppose,
4:39 after all these ages of repetition, the plant does not become possessed of a will, if you so choose to call it,
4:46 of unparalleled tenacity? Indeed, there are plants, like certain of the palms,
4:53 so persistent that no human power has yet been able to change them. The human will is a weak
4:59 thing besides the will of a plant. But see how this whole plant's lifelong stubbornness is broken simply

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