HAND OF THE SPOILER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6536, 17 February 1928, Page 8

HAND OF THE SPOILER

LUTHER BURBANK’S GARDEN INTENDED FOR BUILDING LOTS. SAN FRANCISCO, .Tan. 11. The late Mr. Luther Burbank’s ‘'Garden of Enchantment,” in Santa Rosa, California, where the world-fain ous plant breeder nourished the best of the product of his life-long adventures is to be cut up into building lots. Lcland Stanford University had hoped to take possession of thij|> favoured little plot of three acres, us well as Mr. Burbank’s experimental farm of GOO acres at Sebastopol, 50 miles north of the Golden Gate, but funds were not forthcoming. Now the American press, cast to west is bewailing the loss of the garden of the magician, who made flowers do his will. Only a small portion of the garden is being kept by Mrs. Burbank and it will probably be utilised as a public park. ‘‘But the shade of the master, as it haunts the cedars of Lebanon under which ho is buried in his beloved garden, must,” says the New York Times, “be reminded of the ingratitude of a people to whose State Burbank helped to bring world-wide fame. Had the garden been bought as a memorial, or had garden lovers acquired it with the intention of perpetuating it, even if only; for their private enjoyment, it would have been belter than to think of it torn up with, the rulhlessness that, characterises the levelling activities of jnodern house builders.”