6 EXPERIMENTAL FARMa 



4-5 EDWARD VII., A. 1905 



form work. Tlaese efforts have been mucli appreciated. The ma.s3 of new facta jaearing 

 on agriculture contained in this eighteenth annual report gives evidence of the skill 

 and assiduity of the officers composing the staff of the Experimental Farms, and of 

 their untiring efforts to benefit the cause of agriculture. At all these institutions 

 visiting farmers are always welcome, and those who have an opportunity of personally 

 inspecting the work in progress, after seeing its extent and its practical character, 

 usually leave with a higher regard for the farms than they had before. Those who 

 are unable to visit any of the farms can obtain, for the asking, the annual reports, 

 in which the experiences gained at all the Experimental Farms are given, the perusal 

 of which will give the reader, wherever he may be located, much information of prac- 

 tical value. Bulletins also are issued from time to time on special subjects, and are 

 supplied free in the same manner as the reports. 



THE BREEDING OF CROSS-BRED APPLES FOR THE CANADIAN 



NORTH-WEST. 



As soon as the branch experimerital farms were established in the Canadian 

 North-west experiments were begun on a rather extensive scale with both large and 

 small fruits, with the object of finding out what sorts could be successfully grown there. 

 Hardy varieties of the apple received special attention on account of the general use- 

 fulness of this fruit, and of its importance as a healthful article of diet. During th.e 

 first eight or ten years more than two hundred of the hardiest sorts of cultivated apples 

 obtainable in northern Europe and other northern countries were thoroughly tested, 

 both at Brandon and Indian Head. These were planted in considerable numbers, often 

 from twenty to fifty trees of a kind, in shelter of different degrees and without shelter, 

 but none of these have yet produced a single apple. Experiments are stiU being con- 

 tinued with such new varieties as are announced from time to time as specially hardy, 

 and thus far with similar negative results. 



In 1887, the year during which work on the Experimental Farms was begun, seed 

 was obtained from the Imperial Botanic Gardens at St. Petersburg, Russia, of a small 

 wild Siberian crab-apple known as the ' Berried Crab,' Pyrus haccata. This wild crab 

 is said to grow in great abundance near the shores of the Baikal Sea, and in other parts 

 of Northern Siberia. Young trees were raised from this seed, and some of them were 

 sont to Brandon, Man., and some to Indian Head, N.W.T., and at both places they were 

 found to be en'tirely hardy. During a trial of fourteen or fifteen years the ' Berried 

 Crab,* has never been injured by winter, and the trees have started from the terminal 

 buds on the branches every season. These trees have fruited abundantly for many 

 years, but the fruit is small — not much larger than a cherry — astringent and acid, and 

 sometimes bitter. It does, however, make excellent jelly, hence this fruit in its unim- 

 proved form is found usefuL It is also highly ornamental when covered with blossom 

 in ths spring, or with its fruit in the autumn. The trees are rather dwarf in habit, 

 low branched and strongly built, with the fruit very firmly attached to the tree. From 

 their build and general character they are well adapted to resist the winds to which 

 trees are exposed on the North-west plains. 



BEGINNING OF THE WORK OF CROSS -BUEEDING. 



After four or five years' experience had thoroughly established the character of 

 this tree for extreme hardiness, efforts were made to improve the size and quality of 

 the fruit by cross-fertilizing the flowers of Pyrus haccata with pollen from many of the 

 hardiest and best sorts of apples grown in Ontario. This work was begun in 1894, and 

 has since been continued along several different lines. Tlie seeds obtained from the 

 fiist crosses were sown in the autumn of that year and germinated the following spring 

 producing in all about 160 thrifty young trees. These were planted in the spring of 

 1896. Many of them grevr very rapidly, and soon made shapely si>ecimens. Tlio 



