Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1918 — Burbank’s Liberty Wheat Gives Promise That Bread Is to Be More Abundant [ARTICLE]

Burbank’s Liberty Wheat Gives Promise That Bread Is to Be More Abundant

As Luther Burbank has not been in the habit of indulging in baseless sensations, the announcement from Santa Rosa that, after eleven years of experimentation, he has evolved a wheat plant which will yield an average of forty bushels to the acre of grain possessing a high percentage of gluten becomes news of first importance, asserts a writer in the New York World. Although the wheat crop of the United States is greater than that of any other nation, the average yield to the acre has always been comparatively small. Some years ago it did not exceed twelve bushels. Taking into account what Mr. Burbank has done in the matter of potatoes, apples and plums, to say nothing of flowers, as to which he has almost wrought miracles, we may easily accept at face value whatever he has to say in regard to cereals. Wheat flour has become so vital as a food of civilization that strenuous efforts have been made to extend the acreage and by more careful methods of tillage to increase the average product. Thus far, however, in spite of agitation and instruction, such results as have been gained must., be attributed more to favorable seasons than to intensified cultivation. What a wizard of horticulture has achieved in the wonderful climate of California may not be repeated by everybody else under less favorable conditions, but his discovery is full of promise that some day the bread of the world is to be more abundant. The man who wins that triumph will be entitled to stand in the front rank of those who are to conquer the earth for liberty and democracy. »