File:Luther Burbank - Loquat.jpg

Identifier: lutherburbankhis04burbuoft (find matches)
Title: Luther Burbank: his methods and discoveries and their practical application. Prepared from his original field notes covering more than 100,000 experiments made during forty years devoted to plant improvement, with the assistance of the Luther Burbank Society and its entire membership, under the editorial direction of John Whitson and Robert John and Henry Smith Williams
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Burbank, Luther, 1849-1926 John, Robert Whitson, John Williams, Henry Smith, 1863-1943 Luther Burbank Society
Subjects: Plant-breeding
Publisher: New York Luther Burbank Press
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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Text Appearing Before Image:
What the Loquat Offers
There is another fruit to which reference maybe made here perhaps as well as elsewhere. This is the loquat, a plant classified by the botanists as Eriobotyra. There are several species sometimes classed as loquats, but the common Japanese loquat is the only one which the botanist places in the genus just named. It is a small, broad-leaved, woolly-branched evergreen, useful not only for ornamental purposes, but for its fruit which ripens from February to June, growing from blossoms that usually appear in December and January. The wild loquat of Japan bears a small fruit about the size of a very large cherry or small plum, nearly all skin and seeds, and outwardly somewhat resembling a small apple or large hawthorne fruit, except that it is yellowish in color and rusty woolly. But there are several improved varieties of fruit, due to selective cultivation. These oftenest bear pear-shaped fruit that is sometimes two and one-half inches in length and two inches in di-
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Image Caption:
A Bunch of Loquats
The loquat is indigenous to Japan. The specimens here shown are very much enlarged through selective cultivation. The better varieties of loquats may be grafted advantageously on quince stock. The plant is not hardy enough, unfortunately, to be grown in our northeastern states.
Text Appearing After Image:
LUTHER BURBANK
ameter. The increased size is due to the pulp, the seeds not being changed in size. Indeed there is a tendency in the direction of smaller seeds, and some of the improved loquats are almost seedless. I know of one tree that generally bears fruit that is altogether seedless. This would be a very valuable tree were it not that the particular variety is extremely unproductive. The fruit is usually of a pale yellow or deeper golden color, sometimes shaded with crimson on the sunny side. The flavor suggests that of some early apples, but is generally considered superior. The fruit grows in clusters of three to ten or more, and the improved varieties bear very abundantly. In some cases two crops may be produced in the same year. The tree grows in the Gulf States and along the Pacific Coast, and it is considerably hardier than the orange, but not quite as hardy as the fig. It is quite commonly grown in California

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