The Santa Rosa Connection

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Luther Burbank

Famous horticulturalist LUTHER BURBANK moved to Santa Rosa soon after the success of his first big hybrid, the Burbank potato. A Massachusetts native, Burbank sold the rights to the potato and used the money to move west to California. After his arrival he set up a research facility in Santa Rosa and proceeded to revolutionize farming with hundreds of productive hybrid grains, grasses, vegetables and fruits.

(Photo: Luthur Burbank with some spineless cactus, from the September 1908 edition of  Overland Monthly.  Image via Wikimedia Commons.)