Luther Burbank
In 1849, Luther Burbank was born in Massachusetts. He found fame early, when he single-handedly saved U.S. potato crops from the deadly blight by cultivating russet potatoes. The inventor, who ran Burbank's Experimental Farms in Santa Rosa, Calif., produced more than 800 new varieties of fruits and plants, such as the Shasta daisy. He was recognized for his plant breeding by an Act of Congress. The beloved naturalist was one of Robert Ingersoll's greatest fans. Burbank believed, "Children are the greatest sufferers from outgrown theologies." Shaken by the Scopes trial, Burbank wrote: "And to think of this great country in danger of being dominated by people ignorant enough to take a few ancient Babylonian legends as the canons of modern culture. Our scientific men are paying for their failure to speak out earlier. There is no use now talking evolution to these people. Their ears are stuffed with Genesis." In 1926, an interview about his freethought views appeared in the San Francisco Bulletin, which headlined it: "I'm an Infidel, Declares Burbank, Casting Doubt on Soul Immortality Theory." The article was reprinted around the world, creating shockwaves. Burbank was inundated with mostly critical letters, which he felt he had to reply to personally. Friend and later biographer, Wilbur Hale, attributed Burbank's hastened death to the exertion of his replies: "He died, not a martyr to truth, but a victim of the fatuity of blasting dogged falsehood." A crowd estimated at 100,000 came to Luther's memorial, and heard the openly atheistic and ringing tribute by Judge Lindsay of Denver, Colorado. California still celebrates Luther Burbank's birthday as Arbor Day, planting trees in his memory. D. 1926.
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“Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.”
“We must learn that any person who will not accept what he knows to be truth for the very love of truth alone is very definitely undermining his mental integrity... you have not been a close observer of such men if you have not seen them shrivel, become commonplace, mean without influence, without friends, and without the enthusiasm of youth and growth, like a tree covered with fungus, the foliage deceased, the life gone out of the heart with dry rot and indelibly marked for destruction --- dead, but not yet handed over to the undertaker.”
“It is well for people who think, to change their minds ocasionally in order to keep them clean. ”
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”
“Listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother Nature has to teach, shedding light on that which was before a mystery, so that all who will, may see and know.”