Clausen: Ettersburg Strawberries 



327 



Michel's Early, Senator Dunlap, Mar- 

 shall, Chesapeake, Crcseent, William 

 Belt, Bederwood, Dornan, and Aus- 

 tralian Crimson have yielded promising 

 hybrids. It is unnecessary to go into 

 the characteristics of these, because 

 they are well known and further because 

 these characteristics, except in so far 

 as they are common to all the straw- 

 berry varieties in general cultivation, 

 would lend but little aid to a study of 

 the hybrids which have been produced 

 from them. Suffice it to say that the 

 garden varieties which are represented 

 in the pedigrees of the best of Mr. 

 Etter's productions are , not there be- 

 cause they have displayed any particular 

 value in this respect compared with 

 garden varieties which are not repre- 

 sented. 



The methods which Mr. Etter uses 

 in his strawberry breeding work are 

 very simple but admirably adapted to 

 the material with which he is working. 

 In many cases advantage is taken of the 

 fact that pistillate strains exist within 

 the species and forms with which he is 

 working, and in almost all his crosses 

 such pistillate strains and varieties 

 have been used as the mother parents. 

 Shortly after the blossoms on these 

 selected mother plants open a flower of 

 the desired male parent is bound over 

 it with a strip of muslin, and the pollen 

 then is scattered over it by the thrips 

 which work around in the blossoms and 

 also by the mere contact of the two 

 flowers. In case the desired female 

 parent is perfect flowering the stamens 

 are, of course, removed before pollina- 

 tion. The strip of muslin with the 

 label attached to it remains over the 

 fruit until it is ripe. When the fruits are 

 ripe they are picked and enclosed in 

 little muslin bags. They are then 

 mashed together and hung up to fer- 

 ment for a few days, after which the 

 pulp is washed away from the seeds as 

 thoroughly as possible. The seeds are 

 sown immediately in specially prepared 

 seed boxes in which spaces are marked 

 off for each different cross, and there 

 the young seedlings remain until they 

 are strong enough to be transplanted to 

 the field. No particular attempt is 

 made to hasten germination, conse- 



quently under these conditions most of 

 the seeds germinate the second year 

 after sowing. Obviously these methods 

 do not enable us to be p,bsolutely sure 

 of the parentage of the seedlings, but 

 any doubt as to their hybrid nature 

 would be soon dispelled by a study of 

 the seedlings and their ])arent plants. 



THOROUGH TESTS GIVEN 



The second feature of Mr. Etter's 

 methods lies in the thorough test to 

 which all seedlings thus secured are 

 subjected. They are first transplanted 

 to the trial patch where they are 

 planted in hills, usually three in each 

 hill. Here they remain until they fruit. 

 Those which prove inferior from the 

 start are soon rooted up while those 

 which seem to possess desirable qualities 

 are given Ettersburg numbers and 

 subjected to a further test in four to 

 ten hill units. There they may be 

 compared directly with previous selec- 

 tions which have made good and, if 

 found especially worthy, they are further 

 subdivided and propagated. Mr. Etter 

 has no faith either in his own or any- 

 body else's ability to pick out the 

 varieties which will be successful by any 

 other method than that of a thorough 

 trial; and in the same way in selecting 

 his parents for hybridization, he is 

 guided only by the dictates of 

 experience. 



The selections which Mr. Etter has 

 made have been based almost entirely 

 on the commercial value of the char- 

 acteristics that the seedlings have dis- 

 played under trial. The endeavor has 

 been made to improve the strawberry in 

 vigor, in quality of fruit with respect to 

 texture, flavor, color, etc., in produc- 

 tiveness, and in such other character- 

 istics as might increase its commercial 

 value. A few freaks have been produced 

 in the course of the work but they are 

 merely by-products and very few of 

 them have been retained. In the work 

 several objects have been held in mind, 

 such as the production of strawberry 

 varieties particularly suitable to the 

 home garden, the production of others 

 suitable for canning, and the production 

 of still other varieties suited to more or 

 less special demands. Perhaps these 



