124 Nebraska State Horticultural Society. 



BREEDING GRAPES. 



By C. B. Camp, Cheney 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: From boyhood I have had 

 a love for experimenting with plant life. For thirty years I have 

 sought information from all available sources relating to the woric 

 being performed along the line of Horticulture and Plant Breeding 

 The farm on which I reside was purchased in 1S78. In the fall of 1879 

 an order for nursery stock was placed with the Phoenix Nursery Co. of 

 Bloomington, Ills. Among the plants ordered were a number of grape 

 vines. From this initial planting dates our experimental work in Ne- 

 braska. While our experiments are by no means confined to breeding 

 grapes alone, but include other fruits and berries as well as nuts; yet 

 as this paper is devoted to breeding grapes the above allusion to our 

 other experimental work must suffice for the present. I have carefully 

 studied the work performed by such able investigators as Dr. G. Engle- 

 mann, A. S. Fuller, G. W. Campbell, Jacob Moore, E. S. Rogers, 

 Professors Bailey and Munson, Messrs. John Burr and Luther Burbanl:, 

 and a host of other men who have embellished horticulture with their 

 labors. 



Every year since 1880, trees, plants, and vines, of various kinds, 

 and from many states, have been set out on our grounds. After .a 

 residence of fourteen years in Nebraska there were growing on on^ 

 grounds sixty varieties of grapes. This collection included most 

 varieties recommended as standard varieties for this northwestern 

 country. Of this collection of grape vines not more than a half dozen 

 could be relied on as profitable commercial varieties. In order, there- 

 fore, to provide additional hardy commercial varieties containing e^ 

 cellent table qualities and adapted to the climatic conditions of this 

 northwestern country, I was led to enter into the work of breeding 

 hardy varieties of grapes. Two general systems of plant breeding were 

 adopted as well as one auxiliary system. The first system used 

 "natural fertilization of the flowers," according to the theory advanced 

 by Mr. John Burr of Leavenworth, Kansas. "He held that nature se- 

 lects under the environment the pollen most congenial to perpetuate "ts 

 species and never makes a mistake." The second general system used 

 is that known as "artificial" or forced fertilization of the flowers, as 

 practised by such able experimenters as Dr. Bailey of Cornell Univer- 

 sity; Professor Munson of Denison, Texas, and Luther Burbank of 

 the Pacific Coast. 



