'396 Report of the Department of Horticulture of the 



on our grounds ; Olympia, another " pedigreed " marvel of the 

 press " bred up " from the Baldwin is a " chip off the old block," 

 a typical Baldwin, as it grows here; Improved Shannon and Im- 

 proved Yandevere are other examples of " pedigreed strains " in 

 which no improvement can be found when the trees are grown side 

 by side with the parents. These are but a few examples cited to 

 lead up to a caution several times sent out from this Station in the 

 past few years: Fruit-growers should steer clear of "pedigreed 

 stock " and " improved strains " of varieties until the new produc- 

 tions can be seen somewhere by competent judges growing side by 

 side with the parents. So far, improved strains have turned out 

 to be better suited to advertising than to the needs of fruit- 

 growers. 



DO APPLES DEGENERATE? 



We are not breaking new ground in considering this question, 

 as it is at least a century old. Knight, foremost of horticulturists 

 a hundred years go, maintained that varieties of cultivated plants 

 deteriorate with age. He held that, since all the individuals of 

 any variety of a plant propagated by vegetative means are only 

 parts of one original plant, however greatly multiplied or widely 

 scattered, all must simultaneously approach old age and death. 

 There has been scarcely a horticulturist of note since who has not 

 pronounced for or against Knight's view, in some one of its many 

 phases. If plant-growers were allowed to settle the controversy 

 the verdict would be unanimous that " varieties do degenerate." 

 But the trend of science is against degeneration of varieties. 



Science says that varieties retain their characters perma- 

 nently, suffering deterioration neither from old age nor oft- 

 repeated vegetative reproduction. Cells and plants may die in 

 millions from various causes but individuals retain the power to 

 reproduce the variety indefinitely. Perhaps a qualification to 

 this statement should be made. It is possible that new varieties, 

 especially those arising from crosses, have a first flush of vigor and 

 are more or less unstable, or do not show all of their characters in 

 the first few years of their existence. 



