BURBANK'S LATEST ACHIEVEMENT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13337, 28 March 1911, Page 8

BURBANK'S LATEST ACHIEVEMENT.

Luther Burbank, the Californian horticultural wizard, announces the creation of a strawberry of a new type, the Patagonia. The plant wizard says the berry is the result of . years of effort. It ripens first and continues to bear the longest. The leaves .are large and unusually firm, with a thin, silky down, and “are never injured by sunburn when other varieties are either Seriously browned or wholly destroyed ” The berry is uniformly large, single befries sometimes weighing an ounce, and of a fine scarlet colour, with handsome pale flesh. The seeds are so small as to be almost imperceptible. The new strawberry melts in the mouth, with a sweet, pineapple, strawberry, and cream-like flavour. Burbank says: “Some twenty-five years ago the work of improving the strawberry was commenced on mv grounds. The bcs± combination in this work resulted from the crosses with the seeds of the wild strawterry sent hy Mr Burbank’s collectors in Chili, obtained from the lofty Cordilleras Mountains, and in the coast regions of Southern South America, and also with Brandywine, Longworth’s Prolific, Monarch Marshall, and some of our native Californian berries; but no striking or very unconscious results were obtained until the .second generation, when among the very numerous hybrid seedlings under test was found' this unique berry, which was at once recognised as the grand prize which. Has at last been produced, after much expense, labour, and care during the past 25 years.”