THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ESCHSECHOLIZIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 79

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ESCHSECHOLIZIA.

Luther Burbank, upon whom an amazed world long ago bestowed the title "Wizard of Horticulture," has accomplished another floricultural wonder. He has turned the California poppy red. In the garden around his modest but pretty home th.? famous breeder of fruits, flowers, and plants has for years been adding to the wealth of the botanical kingdom, but few, if any, of his remarkable achievements have more interest to the Calif ornian than this transformation of the State flower from a bright orange colour to a scarlet red, without taking from or adding a leaf to its foliage, without changing its- petals in size or number, and without reshaping a pistil or L remoulding a stamen. Yet it was no wizard's trick ; no magic wand was- wielded by. this patient, painstaking man who has the science of flowers at his finger tips.

Nature herself first offered the suggestion. She kad offered it doubtless husdxeds of times before, but there had- been 'no obF.TJving eye to see it. In. a single golden cup thot shone and glistened on a, Santa Rosa- meadow she wrote her challenge in a delicate, mysterious Jjand. It was an ordinary poppy to the ordinary eye, but it had caught a- fugitive thread* of paL?. red- or pink. It was the merest suggestion, the- outcropping, mayhap, from some distant strain imparted by some sea-r-;le1? flower. that grew ivp as neighbour to its ancestors, but more likely it was simply a/ variation* of species, a "sport," as the botanists, call such, departures from, ty-p-e. Mr Bu-nbank,. ia his strayings among the wild flowers; around Santa Rosa, came across, thi* slightly varied 4 type of the , esthscholtzia, and the result was the scarlet poppy. It-lias, been, listed aaad registered in the •fioriculturcil kingdom-, of America* v.andTi.?xt sesasoni ifc w.iH. be, "ready to begin, / ib*. journey. > around^-the T*orld, mingling^ with the 60. odd othik species- of the papaver family, and taking: a little of Cftli-' 'fernia* sueshine into, other, climes.

Not readily did Queen, Esch&ehelrzia-, of , California' flower land; giv-e up her bright orange dress under the- coaxing of Mr B-ur-bank, wondrous a& is- his influence with flowers-. She- was slow to accept the pink .tint that hogjßi to encroach on- the silken ; texture- of- her apparel, awl to deepen into damask in some of her number and scarlet in others. It took eight years' residence' hi the garden of the flower wizard to change hen colour to- red-

The- task has- just been, accomplished, •tnd Ma' Burbank new rejoices ir a- bed' of several hundred esehscholtzias, about onethird of whicli- have the full coat of scarlet. .The others range in. shades from pink to scarlet, and/ they, like thousands of their progenitors, will be cast aside- as- unworthy to go> forth- into the world with, their s( arlefc robed* sisters.

Ib seems remarkable that Mr Burbank should havfi accomplished the colour trans-fm-mafcros. of the- pappy by artificial selection in only- eight years-. To have< done -so byr hybridisation or- crossing t&e golden joppy w'th some red- member df its family •&R somfr other genus of red; flowers from •. wJliek the escfiscfeoltzia could have been - successfully- pollenised would not seam so ~ remarkable to those wlio know "how flowers can be crossed. But tfce pollenising method was not used in changing the eohmr of the |*'J?°PPy- Kit had- been the result would r mure been a hybrid' popgy, and not the California poppy turned red. Mr Burbank desired the latter result, ; hence Ms eight year*' experiments on. the : lines of artificial selection. Before Mr Burbank succeeded in making the poppy red here is ,vhat> he wrote about his experiment in an essay on flowers : — "We say to- our own Miss Golden Cup, or Miss JEsekseholtziar, as the bon> ton call her : ' This beautiful dress- of bright golden bit© which you have always worn on all , evasions is very becoming to you and ex,e&edingly appropriate in this land- of perpetual golden sunshine, but, Miss Goldem Cup, if you would sometimes adorn your;seh with; a- dress of witite-, pale cream, pink, or crimsrai we eoidd love you still better, than we "do. N»ow Miss Eschscholtaia, though _ having her tastes and family characteristics very firmly fixed, still belongs to the great papaver race, which lias often shown itselfc willing to adapt itself to the discipline- of new conditions, even at first distasteful in. the extreme.

. ''So, after ca-king Miss Golden Cup into 'our gardens and constantly making these suggestions to her, she hesitatingly consents to don, a dress a shade lighter in colour, and. then lighter still-, until we now have her not only in dresses of gojd, but in deepest orange, light and dark shades of cream, purest snowy white, or all these combined, and by constant selection and! various educational influences in this line she will adorn herself in a- dress of almost i any colour which may be desirable, and, at > the same time, soems to take the greatest pleasure in improving herself in every grace of form and feature 1 ."

How patiently he worked with Miss Golden. Cup; how faithfully he taught her, year after year, to change the colour of her texture while not changing the texture itself, was told by his secretary, Mrs Ma.y Maye, who is also companion of the aged mother of Mr Burbank, and whose womanly hands and intuition do much to guide the flowers in the Burbank garden, into ways which Nature, unaided, would never think of leading them. "When Mr Burbank found a poppy with a slight suggestion of pink or one of its

petals, he determined to produce eschscholtzias of different hues." said Mfs Maye. "This poppy experiment is characteristic of him. Though engaged in numerous experiments with fruit trees, berry vines, and the development and perfection of already cultivated flowers, the most humble little wild flower is not beneath his attention. Hs has experimented with hundreds^ of wild flowers and j»lants, and has succeeded in improving thent and developing many into beautiful flowers.

"He planted- the seed of the red-streaked' poppy he- found b.y chance, and the next year he had several poppies, but only tiro of three had more- pink or red in their petals than the parent poppy. All the ethers were destroyed, and the seed of these promising ones were planted. The nexttime he got more promising variation® ; there was a little more red here and a little more pink there; and so- on, year after year, until he got what he wanted, a red •Jalifornia poppy.

"There were a hundred little things to bp. done while the plants were growing. They had to be watched with, great care, and when they bloomed every morning, just as they were spreading out their petals to greet the sun, Mr Burbank would go out and' pluck out those that did not seem incline^ to vary in colour from the poppy that Nature creates."

While Mr Burbank was working with bis poppy he had hundreds of other experiments under way, both in h's large , garden his home and at his experimental farm at Sefeastopol, five or six miles distant. He was breeding a new phim ; imparting the flavour of the Bartlett pear to other plums ; breeding new "plants and flowers by the score; painting innumerable lilies in innumerable colour ; producing five hundred varieties of apples on one tree ; teaching the cacti, family to put away its thorns and live peadably with, its enemies on the desert : putting new tints- into ■ dahlias and adding rows or petals to their blossom; giving the larkspur a shade of coloiu- it never wore before; crossing an annual species of poppy with, a perennial species, +he Oriental ; ma-king daisies as large as the palm of the hand ; producing a stoneless plum ; crossing the plum and apricot ; and carrying on other experiments with nvore or less success. All the time, too, he is receiving letters or visits from botanists, pomologists, horticulturists and floriculturists from the world over.

"THE RONALDS 0' THE BENNALS." — A Contemporary of Annie Ronald — A " Flame " of the Poet Burns. —

(By R. dfACKENZiE Fishek, in the Agri-

cultural Post.)

I have just been out at Monkton recently, and have had a long chat with an old lady, in the person of Mrs Morrison, who, if she lives till the 12th of January, will entSr on the ninety-eighth year of her life. She is in possession of all her faculties, only being lame, owing to an accident she met with some time ago. She requires to sit most of her time in her old armchair

by the fireside. I found her in splendid form for crackin" on old times, ami T asked her if she knew Mrs I'aterson, ot Aitkcnbrae, who was Miss Annie Ronald, a 'dame of our great national poet, Robert Burns. Burns himself acknowledges this ii> his. interesting and happy effusion on '"The Ronalds o' the Bchnals," when he spys : Ihea Annie comes in the pride. The pride or her kin. The boß^t o' ovr bachelors a", man: Sac sonsie and sweet, sac fully complete, She steals our affections awa', man. I like her mysel', but tliirna weel toll, My po\ erty keeps me in awe, man ; For makin' o' rhymes, and working at t.me=, Does liltle or naething ava, mail. Yet I winna choose, tae let her rofu.se. Or ha'it m her power to sac r.a, man; For though I be fcor, unnoticed, obscure, My stomach's as proo«3 as them s.i, man , and so on. "O, aye," she said, "I kenn'd Annie Ronald fine, and Jean tae, and a' the Ronalds o' the Bennals — they were coonted big folk among the farmers lang syne." I then asked about the late Dr Ronald, of Ayr, whom I knew myself more than 50 years ago. "O, aye," she said, "the doctor was ane o' the family."There was also another sister, Isabella Ronald, married to a farmer, a Mr Bruce, whose son I knew when he was in the farm of Shaw, near Prestwick. Turning i'ie conversation on to herself, she*;told me that she was the youngest of 10. Then, refering to her age, "Aye, but," she says, "there's ane leevin' in Kilmarnock, a Mrs Fleming, far aulder than me, for she's a hunner an' six. I mind o' her. servin' in Hiefield when I was a bit-iassock olo l nine years auld. I was sent a message tae the farm, and she was then a^mtitckle strong woman o' auchteen. Nannie Hood' was her name." This same Nannie Hood, or Mrs Fleming, came to see. .i Mrs Donaldson, the Monkton centenai'an, who died more than 18 months ago. She would- be about 103 years at the time, and Mrs Donaldson about 102. Mrs Morrison lived but and ben with Mrs Donaldson, both under the same roof, .their combined ages being, as near as I can make out, 198 years and two months. There are a few old people living in Prestwick on the verge of 90. The day that Mrs Fleming came to visit Mrs Donaldson, Monkton would have the unique experience of having in- its midst three old* ladies whose 1 united ages amounted to about 300 years. Surely this speaks volumes for the healthiness- of Monkton and Prestwick? I then asked her who mai'ried her, and she replied-, "€> Mr Burns." Now, this makes the case still more interesting, as this Mr Burns was the late Rev. Dr Thomas Burns, parish minister of iienkton, who came out at the memorable Disruption in 1843. and went out. to New Zealand and formeda branch of the Free Church in Dunedin, where there is now a monument set up to his memory. He was a son of Gilbert Burns, and therefore a nephew of the poet, having been born at Mossgiel in 1796, the year his illustrious and worldfamed uncle died. I then a&k^d her about i.ef brother, "Tarn," whom I knew well, and of whom I have written a good deal. O, aye," she said, "he was a gey droll chiel oor Tarn." Tarn was a character in the locality, and was beadle and minister's man to the late Rev. Dr Lawi'ie, parish minister of Monkton, author of "D'ye Ye Mm' o' Lang, Lang Syne?" etc., and grandson of the famous Dr Lawrie, of London, who, in conjunction with Dr Blacklock. of Edinburgh, was the means of preA^enting Burns from going to Jamaica, and thereby saving him to his country. Tarn King was a great pedestrian. One day when Nance, his wife, was out, Tarn got into the drawers, got hold of the rent (JBlsh andset off to London to see- the Queen. Thiswas in 1848. I mind of him telling his adventures, after he came home, having been away for a fortnight. Now, sir, I, should think it would be very interesting to your readers who are admirers of our great national poet, especially those who are young, to visit this old lady, who lives in Monkton with a daughter,, arfd her granddaughter, who is a Mrs M'Cartney, so that, perhaps, 30 or 40 years hence, they would be able to say that they had actually seen and conversed with one who knew the sweet, sonsie queen, Annie Ronald, whom the poet loved so ■well, but was too proud to own it to her, or give her the chance to refuse. Annie Ronald is buried in Monkton churchyard. I was at her grave about two years ago. As far as I remember she died in 1828. I forgot to ask who baptised her. but it would likely be Dr Andrew Mitchell, the "Andrew Gauk" of Burns* s "Kirk Alarm," as he lived for two or three years after she was boi-n.