Business: DAVID BURPEE

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TO produce other new flower strains, Burpee technicians have used X rays to alter the genes of calendula seeds, created a large double-petaled variety. They have treated seeds with colchicine. a chromosome-multiplying alkaloid that increases a plant's size and changes its characteristics. Colchicine has made possible giant marigolds and snapdragons, and fluffy, ruffled zinnias.

David Burpee started to learn the business when he was ten by picking sage seeds on the Fordhook Farms for 5¢ an hour. He attended Culver Military Academy, spent summers traveling in Europe with his father to buy new flower seeds, or working at the Floradale Farms as a roguer, i.e., one who picks out rogues, or imperfect plants. After a year at Cornell, David. 22, took over the company when his father died in 1915. He has increased business 14 times to a gross of $6,500,000.

Burpee's current ambition is to have the marigold named the nation's floral emblem. He scorns the corn tassel promoted by Illinois' Senator Paul Douglas ("not a perfect flower"), the carnation backed by Colorado's Senator Gordon Allott ("Just try to grow them"), and the rose supported by Pennsylvania's Senator Hugh Scott. Sniffs Burpee: "It is the emblem of England and eight other countries, four of which have fallen behind the Iron Curtain since selecting the rose as their emblem." He has even registered in Washington as a lobbyist to promote the marigold's cause.