New York Agricttltural Experiment Station. 43 



productive than others from self-pollinated seeds, of which con- 

 siderable numbers are growing at the Station, comparable in age 

 to the crossed seedlings. Contrary to the usual belief, these seed- 

 lings have not " reverted to the wild," but show to a marked degree 

 the characteristics of the parents. So evident is the inheritance 

 of parental characters that one familiar with the varieties crossed 

 could in most cases select the parents for individual seedlings. 

 Indeed, so surprisingly uniform has been the transmission of the 

 good qualities of the selected varieties that the fruit of 14 of the 

 106 fruiting seedlings is considered as good or better than either 

 of the parents, and the trees are satisfactorily productive. These 

 seedlings have been named from counties in New York State 

 and are already distributed to some extent among apple growers. 



Grape stocks for American grapes. — Bulletin No. 355 is the 

 report of an experiment in grafting grapes on roots of several 

 species with the hope of improving the viticulture of New York. 

 The experiment was tried with 19 varieties each having some 

 weakness which it was hoped could be overcome by grafting on 

 one of three different stocks. The vines passed through many 

 vicissitudes during the ten years the test was carried on, but despite 

 these it was evident throughout the experiment that the grafted 

 grapes surpassed those on their own roots. The grafted vines were 

 most j)roductive and showed greatest vigor. The grapes on the 

 grafted vines ripened a few days earlier than those on their own 

 roots. The experiment suggests that it would be profitable to 

 grow some of the fancy grapes of this region on grafted vines 

 and that it is well within the bounds of possibility that main-crop 

 grapes can be profitably grafted. It is recommended that grape 

 growers try small vineyards of grafted grapes, using as stocks the 

 three tried in this experiment. 



Pedigreed nursery stock. — Circular 18 from this Department 

 holds that there is but slight foundation for the claims of nursery- 

 men and fruit growers who advocate propagating trees only from 

 buds taken from selected trees. The assertions that trees propa- 

 gated from selected stock are better than those taken from other 

 trees of the same variety far outstrip the evidence. To attempt 



