112 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



REPORT OF ASSOCIATE HORTICULTURIST. 



Director C. D. Smith : 



Sir:— I submit my secoud annual report as associate horticulturist 

 of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, in charge of the 

 experimental work in horticulture at the college. The general policy 

 of this division is stated in my last report as follows : "I suggest that 

 the dominating features of experimental work in horticulture at the 

 college be two : Cross-pollination and plant breeding. This does not 

 mean that other needed lines of investigation shall be neglected but 

 that our energies shall be expended mainly upon these two subjects." 



EXPERIMENTS IN PROGRESS. 



These may be classified as follows: 



Pollination Expirements. 



1. Cross-pollination of orchard fruits. 



2. Cross-pollination of the strawberry. 



3. Cross-pollination of forced tomatoes. 



Plant Breeding Experiments. 



4. Selection of seed potatoes. 



.^. Breeding blight-resistant varieties of potatoes. 

 G. Strawberry breeding. 



7. Breeding orchard fruits. 



8. A study of the varieties and unnamed seedlings of Michigan 

 origin. 



Miscellaneous Experiments. 



0. Spraying for potato bliglit. 



10. The control of the diseases of greenhouse lettuce. 



11. Cold storage of fruits. 



1. Orchard PoUlnaHon. This vroik has been condurled r<n' several 

 years. Tlie main ])ractical objcM-ls are (o determine which of the com- 

 mon commercial varieties of fruits are benelited by being planled near 

 other sorts for the purpose of cross-pollination: and what varieties it 

 is best to plant together. Incidentally the relation of rainy weather, 

 frost, and spraying in bloom to the setting of fruit will be investigated. 

 The results of the work with Bartlett and Kietfer pears are now being 

 pre])ared for a bulletin. About 10,000 fruit blossoms were under ex- 

 periment the past spring. Our design is to ultinmtely have a gi'een- 

 house devoted exclusively to the forcing of dwarf fruit trees in pots, for 

 the ])urpose of studying these important problems in a climate that we 



