A NEW HYBRID—THE KATHARINE BLUEBERRY 
The illustration shows, in natural size, a quart box of fruit from a new hybrid blueberry which is 
given the variety name Katharine. The variety is a first generation hybrid between two selected 
wild plants of the highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum. One of these parents, known in 
our records as Brooks, was from Greenfield, N. H. The other parent, known as Sooy, was from 
Browns Mills, N. J. About 3,000 hybrids of this parentage, from pollinations made in the green- 
house at Washington in 1912 and 1913, have been fruited at the blueberry testing plantation at 
Whitesbog, four miles east of Browns Mills, N. J., which is under the supervision of Miss Elizabeth 
C. White. The best hybrid among these 3,000 is the one here illustrated. The photograph, taken 
July 18, 1918, shows a clean picking of all the berries that were ripe on the bush at that date, small 
as well as large ones. Less than 3% of the berries, by count, were under half an inch in diameter. 
The largest was 34 ofaninch. The berries have a light blue color, delicious flavor, and firm texture, 
and the seeds are so small as to be scarcely noticeable when the berries are eaten. Propagation 
material of this variety has been given to several nurserymen, as hybrid 830C, and plants should 
be available within a year or two. The type specimen of the variety has been deposited in the 
Economic Herbarium of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and a colored drawing of its fruit 
has been filed in the records of the American Pomological Society, in Washington. The name 
Katharine is given in honor of my daughter, Mrs. Katharine C. Woodburn, now of Des Moines, 
Iowa, who took a deep interest in the development of the blueberry and at one time did all the 
pollination work.—Frederick V. Coville, United States Department of Agriculture. (Frontispiece.) 
