Cultivation. 389 



had one limb bearing apples of much lighter color, and having the 

 aj)pearance of a separate variety. The quality in many cases varies quite 

 ar much on the same tree as the other characteristics. The plant-breeder 

 will therefore not plant bushels of seeed and throw away hundreds of 

 seedlings before he gets a given type, but will rather watch the habit of 

 given varieties of fruit trees, selecting given branches of a given type, 

 and propagating from these up to his ideal. — ^. J. Society; Country Gen- 

 tleman. 



ARE PEDIGREED PLANTS BETTER? 



Editor Rural World: 



In the spring of 1897 I got a dozen each of four standard varieties 

 •of strawberry plants, from one of the so-called "pedigree" plant growers 

 who claim they have bred up certain old varieties and that their plants 

 are so much superior to others. I wanted to see if there was really any- 

 thing in them. The plants arrived in due time and the four dozen cost 

 me nearly what I would have sold 200 at, and my plants would have 

 been, on an average, twice as large— they were as sorry a lot as I ever 

 bought. I throw away hundreds of better plants than one-half of these 

 ■were. Still they were "pedigree" plants and sound, and I gave them a 

 trial alongside of some of my own growing that I have had on the place 

 or in my hands for ten or fifteen years, with the result that one-half of 

 the "pedigree" plants failed to grow or died, after a feeble start, and 

 those that grew did as well as any. When fruiting time came there was 

 not an iota's difference that I could see. Of course, 1898 was a poor 

 strawberry season, but the pedigree plants that should have proved their 

 superiority failed to show it. JSTow I want to say this, the pedigree plant 

 business is all right and may help to sell plants, but when we have a 

 good berry crop we have good berries all along the row. In 1897 every 

 variety in the place was loaded with perfect fruit, and if there were any 

 detoriated plants in these rows they could not have been detected by 

 tlie expert pedigree plant sellers. I have had Bubach, Crescent, Jessie, 

 Capt. Jack and other varieties for ten to fifteen years, and when we have 

 a crop year we have berries on all the plants in the matted row. When 



