Luther Burbank (1849-1926) with Wilbur Hall

Satsuma Plum

From The Harvest of the Years, 1931

Many emigrants have arrived in California with almost nothing, including one young man from the east whose fortune was a pocketful of potatos.

In 1875, horticultural entrepreneur Luther Burbank settled in Santa Rosa, where he found perfect conditions for creating new plant hybrids and improving exotic ones, including a luscious import from Japan.

. . . I was browsing in the Mechanics Library in San Francisco when I came across a book written by an American sailor about his wanderings in Japan, and in it there was a description of a "blood-red" plum found in the province of Satsuma. That sailorman was not a skilled writer, but he certainly must have been a good trenchman, because he described that plum so that it made your mouth water to read about it! As far as I was concerned the red-fleshed plum of Satsuma was sold and the first payment made down! I was going to have it for California.

Luther Burbank recounted this story in his 1926 autobiography, The Harvest of the Years, written with Wilbur Hall.