Garden of Invention

<b> The wide-ranging and delightful history of celebrated plant breeder Luther Burbank and the business of farm and garden in early twentieth- century America </b> <p/> At no other time in history has there been more curiosity or concern about the food we eat-and genetically modified foods in particular have become both pervasive and suspect. A century ago however Luther Burbank's blight-resistant potatoes white blackberries and plumcots-a plum-apricot hybrid-were celebrated as triumphs in the best tradition of American ingenuity and perseverance. In his experimental grounds in Santa Rosa California Burbank bred and cross-bred edible and ornamental plants-for both home gardens and commercial farms-until they were bigger hardier more beautiful and more productive than ever before. A fascinating portrait of an American original <i>The Garden of Invention</i> is also a colorful and engrossing tale of the intersection of gardening science and business in the years between the Civil War and the Great Depression.