. Luther Burbank, his methods and discoveries and their practical application; . n the easternUnited States, and for that matter most of thefinest Californian varieties, are the bearers of animpulse to development that was given bya French horticulturist, Jean Baptiste Van Mons,and Andrew KLnight of England about a centuryago. Van Mons acted on a theory, now aban-doned, that young plants produce the best prog-eny. But this led him to sow, to re-sow, to sowagain, to sow perpetually. And he selected hisseeds with such care as to develop many improvedvarieties. In particular, he taught some pears
. Luther Burbank, his methods and discoveries and their practical application; . n the easternUnited States, and for that matter most of thefinest Californian varieties, are the bearers of animpulse to development that was given bya French horticulturist, Jean Baptiste Van Mons,and Andrew KLnight of England about a centuryago. Van Mons acted on a theory, now aban-doned, that young plants produce the best prog-eny. But this led him to sow, to re-sow, to sowagain, to sow perpetually. And he selected hisseeds with such care as to develop many improvedvarieties. In particular, he taught some pears tobear fruit in three years from the seed. Van Mons produced by selection about fourhundred new varieties of pears, among others adwarf variety that was a prolific bearer. Meantime, however, the pear was making itsway in America, and one of the most famous va-rieties, the Seckel, originated in the early part ofthe nineteenth century on the farm of a manwhose name it bears near Philadelphia. This wasa spontaneous variant or mutant, the preciseorigin of which is unknown. [114]. LUTHER BURBANK At the time of its origin the Seckel was pro-nounced by the conservative London Horticultur-ist Society to be superior to any European varietyof fall pear then known. Rather curiously it chanced that the next verynotable step in the progress of the pear also tookplace on a farm near Philadelphia. The ownerof the farm was Mr. Peter Kieffer. The thing forwhich he was responsible was the introduction ofa pear bearing his name, which originated throughthe chance hybridization of a pear of Europeanstrain with the Chinese sand pear, which had beenintroduced as an ornamental garden tree not longafter relations were established between Americaand the Far East. The oriental pear which thus at last came tomingle its racial strains with those of this remoterelative, after the two had traveled around theworld in opposite directions, was a graceful treehaving large and attractive flowers and bearingfrui
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