February, 1921 



BETTER FRUIT 



Page 7; 



Pedigreed" Trees— Where Do We Stand? 



By A. E. Murneek, Assistant Professor of Horticultural Research, Oregon Experiment Station 



WHILE we have been fast elim- 

 inating the scrub or unproduc- 

 tive cow from our dairy herds, 

 and in its place have been introducing 

 the selected or pedigreed animal, very 

 little, if any, selection work of syste- 

 matic and organized nature has been 

 done with our fruit trees, the exclusive 

 mortgage lifters of many a farmer of 

 the Northwest. If there is a marked 

 difference in respect to productivity 

 among the Holsteins; if a Jersey is not 

 always a Jersey; if "blood" counts; can 

 there not possibly be also as real 

 fundamental and tangible difference 

 between two Newtown trees, though 

 the buds from which they were 

 propagated may have come from the 

 same orchard. If "blood" counts in the 

 Jersey, may it not count in the Spitzen- 

 burg as well? This analogy may not 

 be permissible exactly, but it conveys 

 the meaning just the same. 



Undoubtedly there have been numer- 

 ous, though largely spurious, attempts 

 at selection of fruit trees. Most of 

 them have, however, not justified the 

 measures of precaution and necessary 

 expenditure connected with such a 

 practice. Perhaps the lack of a ready 

 and convenient method of judging the 

 exact commercial value of a selected 

 tree — a "Babcock tester" for plants, so 

 to speak — has been the main cause 

 of these failures. Yet the waves of en- 

 thusiasm for "pedigreed" trees visit us 



often enough. They are within the 

 easy memory of the horticulturist of to- 

 day. Just now one such wave is reach- 

 ing us from our sister state in the south. 

 Recently much interest and great ac- 

 tivity has been displayed by citrus 

 growers in California in propagating 

 "selected" trees and grafting over un- 

 productive trees or whole orchards to 

 "selected" buds obtained from trees of 

 known performance. These are the di- 

 rect results of long continuous and la- 

 borous investigations of A. D. Shamel, 

 of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, who, with the help of sev- 

 eral assistants, has been working on 

 this problem ever since 1909. The re- 

 sults of this endeavor have been em- 

 bodied in a number of bulky bulletins 

 published by the federal government. 

 They are quite striking and illustrative, 

 to say the least. 



The records of Mr. Shamel show that 

 great variability exists within the com- 

 mercial varieties of almost all culti- 

 vated citrus fruits. Thus, for instance, 

 thirteen important strains have been 

 found in the Washington naval orange 

 alone, while the total number of strains 

 existing in this variety, though un- 

 known, may exceed many times this 

 number. Some of these strains have 

 been named and are now used almost 

 exclusively for propagating purposes. 

 Others have been found to be worthless. 

 Tree performance records have shown 



that many drone trees of low produc- 

 tivity are to be found in almost every 

 citrus orchard, some having as many 

 as 75 per cent of such trees. 



As a result of these investigations 

 most of the citrus fruits propagated in 

 California at present are from buds of 

 selected trees, which have been found 

 either by continuous observation or by 

 tree performance records to be pro- 

 ductive and of the desirable type or 

 strain. This practice has become so es- 

 tablished that even such dominating 

 and conservative organization as the 

 California Fruit Growers' Exchange has 

 established a special department of 

 bud selection. According to the last an- 

 nual report of the general manager of 

 the Exchange, this department has fur- 

 nished to date approximately 1,000,000 

 buds cut from selected trees, and will 

 increase this number by 250,000 during 

 the present season. Consequently al- 

 most all of the leading nurserymen in 

 the state are now propagating their 

 citrus nursery stock only from selected 

 buds. 



Moreover, it is estimated that more 

 than 40,000 undesirable citrus trees in 

 California orchards have been top- 

 grafted with selected buds. Some of 

 these top-worked trees are already in 

 bearing. According to Mr. Shamel not 

 a single case has been found where the 

 chosen tree characteristics have not 



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B. T. S. 



DRY POWDERED 



BARIUM- SULPHUR COMPOUND 



PATENTED APRIL 23, 1918 



—COMBINED IN POWDERED FORM— 



Before being offered in the market B T S was subjected to exhaustive tests, in both dormant period and 

 growing period sprayings, by Prof. W. M. Scott. These tests proved conclusively that the same results were 

 obtained with it as with lime-sulphur solution. Based upon these tests, B T S has been offered generally in the 

 market for the past several years with the same satisfactory results to the growers. 



*™ T §-'l K B £! e ?i? fl E Pr e P arat '°" combining the Insectlcidal and fungicidal properties of barium and sulphur, 

 and in which both the barium and the sulphur are available as active Ingredients 



Although barium belongs to the same chemical group as calcium (or lime) it possesses in addition certain 

 properties which when combined with sulphur greatly inerea.se the efficiency of both material- 1 , nd.'i in- the 

 compound remarkably effective in killing scale insects and also as a fungicide. 



Our interests are the same as yours. Write us about 

 Dormant, and Bulletin No. 5 on Growing Period Spraying of Deciduous Fruii 



"in tree troubles, and ask for Bulletin No. 3 on 



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Our service includes ware" 

 house stocks at convenient 

 distribution points, including 

 Wenatchee, Yakima, Spo- 

 kane, Walla Walla, Lewiston, 

 Boise, Provo, Hood Kiver, 

 Portland, Medford. 



MATERIALS 



Dry Powdered Arsenate of Lead 



Packed In i-li>. paper bags 1 in and 96-lb. cases) 



and in hulk (200-lb. drums 1. 

 Standard Paste Arsenate of Lead. 

 Atomic Sulphur (patented). 

 Bordeaux Mixture Paste. 

 Dry Powdered Bordeaux Mixture. 

 Universal Brand Dormant Soluble Oil. 

 Universal Brand Miscible Oil. 

 Universal Brand Distillate Oil Emulsion. 



GENERAL CHEMICAL COMPANY, 1811 L. C. Smith Building, Seattle 



EN WRITING 



ENTION BETTER FRUIT 



