REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR AND ACTING AGRICULTURIST. 65 



versa, but without success. Similar experiments have also been tried with the different 

 varieties of cherries, notably those belonging to the Bigarreau class with the Duke and 

 Morello types. Seedlings of these were grown for a time, the foliage of which was 

 intermediate in character, but none of them lived long enough to produce fruit. Efforts 

 were made to cross the plum with the peach, also the plum with the cherry, both without 

 success. After the work of cross-fertilizing fruits had been continued for eight or nine 

 years, the number of seedlings accumulated to such an extent as to be burdensome to look 

 after, and further efforts, which would have added to their number, were for a time 

 suspended. 



Flowering Plants. 



In the meantime some experiments were made with flowers. Attempts were made 

 for several seasons to cross the wild geraniums. Geranium maculatum and G. robertianum, 

 with several of the best cultivated pelargoniums, with the hope of obtaining improved 

 forms of hardy perennial geraniums, but without success. A wild perennial species of 

 verbena, V. hastata, was poUenized with some of the finest forms of the cultivated 

 verbena, with a similar object ; and in this instance a number of crosses were obtained, 

 but these were planted out in an open border without protection, where they all died 

 during the following winter. Crosses were also made with Aquilegias, and very distinct 

 intermediate forms obtained. Experiments were also tried to see if evidence could be 

 had of superfoetation in this flower, the varieties of which are so easily cross-fertilized. 

 The sorts selected for this work were a red-flowering form, Aquilegia Canadensis, and the 

 double blue and white forms of Aquilegia vulgaris. The red was crossed with the white 

 and the pistils touched the following day with pollen from the blue flowers ; the white 

 with the blue, and retouched with the red ; and the blue with the red, and retouched 

 with white. A large number of seedlings were raised, most of which showed two colours 

 quite distinctly, but no trace of the influence of the third colour could be detected in 

 any instance. 



Wild Crab Apples. 



In the spring of 1 887, among other seeds received from the Royal Botanic Gardens 

 at St. Petersburg there was a package of the seeds of a small wild Siberian crab, known 

 as the berried crab, Pyrus haccata. From these a number of young trees were raised, 

 some of which have now been tested at the branch experimental farm at Brandon, 

 Manitoba, for six years, and at Indian Head, N.W.T., for five years, and in every 

 instance these trees have been found quite hardy, and during the last two seasons some 

 of them have borne good crops of fruit. This crab, although it bears abundantly, has 

 very small fruit, not much larger than a cherry. Another variety, known as Pyrus haccata 

 pruni/olia, is more than double the size of P. haccata, and this also, although tested for a 

 shorter time, appears to be equally hardy. These trees are dwarf in habit, with branches 

 extending close to the ground ; they are also very sturdy and thickly branched and 

 from their build are well adapted to resist the winds and other climatic difiiculties from 

 which many trees suffer on the North-west plains. 



Having tried during the past nine years, under many different conditions as to 

 shelter, about 200 varieties of the hardiest sorts of cultivated apples and crab apples 

 obtainable from Northern Europe and elsewhere, at both these North-west farms without 

 success, efforts are now being made to improve the two wild crabs referred to, in size 

 and quality of fruit, by cross-fertilizing them with many of the hardiest sorts of apples 

 grown at Ottawa, also with the larger crabs. The first crosses were obtained in 1894 

 and the young trees, which came up in 1895, were transplanted from the seed bed to a 

 small experimental orchard on the Central Farm, in 1896, where they are now growing 

 to the number of 175, and some of these will probably fruit within two years. The 

 foliage of these seedlings varies much in character, some resembling that of the varieties 

 of cultivated apples used as the male, while others are more like that of the wild type of 

 the female. During 1896 and 1897 this work has been continued on a much larger 

 8a ~ 5 



