The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.58 (681 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0143116894 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 368 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2013-12-30 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Deserves a spot in any general lending library Midwest Book Review GARDEN OF INVENTION: LUTHER BURBANK AND THE BUSINESS OF BREEDING PLANTS offers an excellent history of the plant breeder and farm and garden efforts in early 20th century America. A century ago Burbank was the most famous gardener on the planet. This survey of his contributions is not a biography nor an encyclopedia of his creations but a cultural and social survey of Burbank's influences on gardening trends and American culture, and deserves a spot in any general lending library.. "I'm pretty sure it's all here" according to Amazon Customer. If you want to know about Luthar Burbank, I'm pretty sure it's all here. In fact, if there is a downside, it's probably that you might not want to know -this- much about him. I was very interested in his gardening techniques, and while this was in the book, it was a small part. This is a comprehensive biography. It's a thorough, historical account of his life, his personality, his path to success, and people's reaction to him at the time. The book is kind of dry, but let's be honestthis is a book about the premiere gardener of the early 1900's. You kind of know what you're in fo. Frank Beckendorf said A Gem for You Plant Nuts!!. No one can argue that Luther Burbank did more for plants, farming and gardening than anyone else. His work has helped to feed thousands.American ingenuity is an obvious standout in this selection where his genius shines and his ideas provide a portrait of the fastening of gardens, science and business of inventions.Fascinating
From Publishers Weekly Though as famous in his day as Thomas Edison, agricultural pioneer Luther Burbank (1849–1926) is little remembered; in this straightforward, engaging biography, author and historian Smith (Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine) recounts Burbank's life and its context, chronicling also agribusiness's turn-of-the-century growth and industrialization. . Amazingly, Burbank discovered independently the Mendelian principles that form the basis of genetics, and developed more than 800 varieties of fruits, nuts, vegetables and flowers. All rights reserved. Smith covers
Smith writes about the intersection of nature, science, and social change. Her history of the first polio vaccine, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine, was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. She lives in Chicago, where she works in a very small room with a very large window. Jane S. in English from Yale Unive
A fascinating portrait of an American original, The Garden of Invention is also a colorful and engrossing tale of the intersection of gardening, science and business in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression.. In his experimental grounds in Santa Rosa, California, Burbank bred and cross-bred edible and ornamental plants-for both home gardens and commercial farms-until they were bigger, hardier, more beautiful, and more productive than ever before. The wide-ranging and delightful history of celebrated plant breeder Luther Burbank and the business of farm and garden in early twentieth- century America At no other time in history has there been more curiosity or concern about the food we eat-and genetically modified foods, in particular, have become both pervasive and suspect. A century ago, however, Luther Burbank's blight-resistant potatoes, white blackberries, and plumcots-a plum-apricot hybrid-were celebrated as triumphs in the best tradition of American ingenuity and perseverance