78 FAMOUS LlVma AMERICANS and contributed of their funds for its maintenance and spread. The entire mass of Mr. Burbank's records, together with much that has been written by other workers in this field, has been assimilated, classified, and rewritten. The Society has gone to the great expense of perfecting a new process of color photography for the purpose of demonstrating the exact meth- ods employed, so that one sees before him, as it were, the actual plant in the hands of this wizard-like workman. More than two hundred thousand dollars have been expended in the distribution of several million bulletins, pamphlets and other printed documents, in this and other countries, among those in- terested in plant breeding and in the improvement of agricul- ture and horticulture. The United States government protects the man who makes an invention: it protects the man who improves some other man 's inventions, and says that he is entitled to all the profits that can be made out of the invention or the improvement. The patent laws of all countries protect him to the exclusion of all others. But the creator of new plants or the improver of old ones gets no protection from any country. The secre- tary of The Luther Burbank Society has pointed out the fact that if Mr. Burbank had devoted his inventive genius to the perfection of new machinery (as his early days gave evidence that he might), he could be worth millions from his legally protected royalties. But having been guided only by his ideal, without thought of profit or reward, and becoming an inventor of new forms of plant life, he gets no permanent, material benefit — is entitled, by law, to none. The United States government, through William H. Seward, bought Alaska for $7,200,000. Some people say that next to the Louisiana Purchase, Seward ^s purchase of Alaska stands as the greatest land acquisition of the century. Alaska pro- duced in the year 1911, $19,000,000 in gold. Yet how insignif- icant is this $7,200,000 compared with Luther Burbank 's sale for $175 of one small potato that the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture says is adding $17,500,000 a year to the farm incomes of America. Other creations, through their sale to nurserymen and seedsmen, have enabled him to enjoy
