A. N. JONES PLANT BREEDER 



SOME REMARKABLE RESULTS 



IN 



HYBRIDIZATION AND ROOT SEPARATION 



Ida Jones Richmond 



Batavia, Neiv York 



MR. A. N. JONES of Batavia, 

 N. Y., began his work in hy- 

 bridization in 1869 at LeRoy, 

 N. Y. By 1876 he had secured, by 

 crossing seedUngs, many promising hy- 

 brids of the potato and the strawberry. 

 Among these were the Early Gem, 

 Genesee County King, and Tioga po- 

 tato, and the Laural Leaf strawberry, 

 still found growing in his garden true 

 to type. The Amber Cream sweet 

 corn was originated in these early days, 

 being catalogued first in 1879. 



In 1878, Mr. Jones began his work 

 in cross-fertilization of wheat, then 

 considered a most difficult plant to 

 cross. In this work he secured many 

 hundred distinct hybrids of winter 

 wheat. Careful selection was practiced 

 and only those of marked excellence or 

 distinct difference were introduced to 

 the seed trade of the United States and 

 Canada. 



Mr. Jones, in an elaborate series of 

 experiments in his plats, demonstrated 

 the tendency of certain characters to 

 perpetuate themselves. At that time 

 comparatively little was known con- 

 cerning the facts of inheritance. "Men- 

 del's Law" formulated in 1865, by 

 Gregor Mendel, an Austrian Monk 

 who had experimented extensively with 

 garden peas, was not known by the 

 world at large. In his experimental 

 work Mr. Jones evolved his own 

 method of which he was justly proud. 

 I am confident that dominance, segre- 

 gation, and recombination were ob- 

 served by Mr. Jones and were im- 

 pressed upon his memory by hundreds 

 of his own experiments. In all his 

 cross-breeding he realized the impor- 

 tance of heredity; the "silent force 

 which acts without expense" but so 

 steadily, so surely. The pedigree of all 

 his named varieties was worked out 



with infinite care and precision; note 

 that of Early Genesee Giant as it 

 appears in "the Basis for the Improve- 

 ment of American Wheat" by Mark 

 Alfred Carlton, Bulletin No. 24, Divi- 

 sion of Vegetable Physiology and 

 Pathology, U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture. (Fig. 4). 



In 1886, he introduced to the trade 

 his first named wheat hybrid, Golden 

 Cross, this being a cross of Mediter- 

 ranean and Clawson. This was fol- 

 lowed in 1888 by two other named 

 v^arieties. New Early Red Clawson (a 

 cross of Golden Cross and Clawson) 

 and Jones' Square Head (a cross of 

 Landreth and an unnamed hybrid) 

 known in Canada as Harvest Queen 

 by permission of Mr. Jones. These 

 three varieties proved to be the van- 

 guard of a series of wheats introduced 

 over a period of years. In 1889 the 

 first of Mr. Jones' hard gluten sorts, 

 Jones' Winter Fife was sent out. Of 

 this he had great hopes and said: 

 "It is a boon to farmers and millers." 

 This variety resulted from composite 

 crossing of No. 87 and Mediterranean. 

 In 1919 it was estimated by the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture that nearly 

 half a million acres of this variety were 

 grown in the United States, principally 

 in Washington, Illinois, Missouri, Indi- 

 ana, Idaho, and Montana in the order 

 named. (Fig. 6.) 



In 1889 he wrote as follows, "My 

 most successful cross-breeding has been 

 from combination (composite) crossing, 

 as in crossing Mediterranean Long- 

 berry upon American wheat, progeny 

 of which is crossed with Russian Vel- 

 vet. A smooth chafi'ed wheat is some- 

 times used, progeny of which is again 

 crossed with American wheat. This 

 cross gives a strong healthy growth, 

 deep root, thick walled stocky straw, 



103 



