Life — September 2, 1915 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Burbanking the Nations" This satirical piece compares German military aggression to "burbanking"—a horticultural technique where plants are grafted onto different rootstock to produce new varieties. The article argues that just as plants resist being "burbanked" and prefer remaining unchanged, nations dislike German interference. The joke: Germans are attempting to forcibly "graft" their influence onto other nations, producing unwanted hybrid results (novel fruits, spineless helmets, deportments). The two photographs below labeled "The Invader: A Little Matter of Two Generations" show a soldier in a mountain pass (presumably a German soldier invading neutral territory) contrasted with a modern vehicle on a city street, illustrating how invasion methods have evolved across generations. The satire criticizes German expansionism as fundamentally unwanted foreign interference.