proceedings: botanical society of WASHINGTON 1 47 



some crops and at all times with other crops leads to a number of prac- 

 tical questions. It was shown in the experiments reported that wheat 

 seed first began to germinate six days after blossom. Germination 

 increased to 78 per cent at the end of two weeks, then decreased at 

 ripening time and rose slowly to 92 per cent a month after harvest. 

 Corn began to germinate when 12 days old, germinated over 20 per 

 cent in the roasting-ear stage, 88 per cent at four-weeks age, then de- 

 clined and rose slowly after the grain began to lose weight. Tomatoes, 

 peas, and cowpeas germinated well before maturity, and a number of other 

 species germinated to some extent. Blackberry, lily, euphorbia, and 

 ragweed, seeds that might be expected to have difficult germination 

 when ripe, were tried in immature condition to see if the cause of dor- 

 mancy acted before ripening. No germination was obtained in these 

 species. 



The 133rd regular meeting of the Society was held at the Cosmos 

 Club at 8 p.m., Tuesday, February 4, 1919. Fifty-eight members 

 and five guests were present. Messrs. M. N. Pope, Curtis H. Kyle, 

 J. P. Benson, J. I. Lauritzen, R. N. Jones, P. G. Russell, L. G. 

 Hoover, and J. A. Stevenson were elected to membership. The 

 program consisted of the following papers: 



Producing self-fertile muscadine grapes (with lantern) : Chas. T. 

 Bearing. The office of Horticultural and Pomological Investigations 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture has conducted muscadine- 

 grape investigations for the past 12 years with a view to the develop- 

 ment of this native type of grape as a fruit industry for the southeastern 

 United States where other grapes do not thrive. These investigations 

 have been in the nature of field surveys, studies of proper cultural, 

 handling, and utilization methods, and breeding. 



The breeding work has aimed toward maintaining the desirable 

 characters of the species while securing improvement in those ways in 

 which this seemed possible. The production of self -fertile varieties 

 has undoubtedly been the most important result. At the time these 

 investigations were undertaken, there was not such a thing as a self- 

 fertile muscadine grape. All the fruiting varieties were self -sterile 

 and dependent on insects to bring fertile pollen from the wild male 

 muscadines. The Department now has a large collection of self-fertile 

 varieties. 



The value of these self -fertile varieties is evident, (i) They are of 

 inestimably great value in breeding work in that they afford for the 

 first time the opportunity to intercross within the species without using 

 as one parent a variety of unknown fruiting qualities (male vine). 

 Breeding directly for a combination of the desirable characters found 

 in the fruiting varieties of V. rotundifolia is now possible. (2) They 

 afford directly a cluster of increased size (a breeding object) in that the 

 self -fertile varieties are the result of perfecting the large-clustered male- 

 type blossoms rather than the small-clustered female-type blossoms. 

 (3) They afford greater productiveness in that they are able to set a 

 larger per cent of the bloom buds as berries due to their self -fertility. 



