PLANT BREEDING IN CANADA 



Work at Dominion Experimental Farms Begun by Late Dr. William Saunders- 

 Mostly with Apples -Many Hardy Types Produced — Work with 

 Vegetables and Ornamentals. 

 W. T. Macoun 

 Dominion Horticulturist, Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, Canada. 



THE breeding of horticultural 

 plants at the Dominion Experi- 

 mental Farms was begun when 

 the late Dr. Wm. Saunders 

 brought from London, Ont., in 1888, 

 a large collection of bush fruits and 

 grapes which he had accumulated as a 

 result of his work in cross-breeding 

 begun in 1868. Since 1888 a continuous 

 effort has been made to originate new 

 varieties of fruits, vegetables and flowers 

 which would be more useful in some 

 parts of Canada than anything available 

 from other sources. Canada had up to 

 that time depended almost entirely 

 for new varieties of fruits on foreign 

 countries and while this is true to a 

 large extent today, much has been done 

 by the Dominion Experimental Farms 

 to develop new plants. While the main 

 purpose has been to obtain new varieties 

 of commercial value, the possible dis- 

 covery of underlying principles has 

 been kept constantly in mind. 



As the main work in breeding has 

 been with the apple, the greater part 

 of this article will be devoted to giving 

 an account of what has been done with 

 this fruit. 



In 1887, seed of the wild Siberian 

 crab a])i)le Pyrus baccata was im]jorted 

 from the Ro\'al Botanic Gardens, Petro- 

 grad, Russia, and sown at the Central 

 Experimental Farm, Ottawa. Young 

 trees grown from this seed were sent 

 to the ExiK'rimental E'^arms at Brandon, 

 Man., and Indian Head, Sask., in the 

 prairie provinces, where the winters arc 

 very severe, the tem]jerature at Indian 

 Head falling at times to 50 below zero, 

 Fahr. These trees proved c}uite hardy 

 on a jjractically treeless ])rairie, while 

 trees of cultivated varieties of crab 

 apples and apples succumbed. 

 398 



The fruit of this wild cral) apple is 

 very small, only half an inch in diameter, 

 and it is quite a.stringent. In 1894 the 

 late Dr. Wm. Saunders, then Director 

 of the Experimental Farms, began 

 crossing this wild crab apjjle with named 

 varieties of apples in the hope of 

 obtaining fruits of larger size and better 

 quality than P. baccata but which would 

 retain sufficient hardiness to endure the 

 climate of the prairie provinces. All the 

 crosses recorded have P. baccata as the 

 mother; reciprocal crosses were not 

 made. One hundred and sixty trees 

 resulted from the first crossing and 

 several hundred from subsequent work, 

 or about 800 in all. 



Some of the varieties of apples used as 

 male parents are Tetofsky, Duchess, 

 Wealthy, Anis, Beautiful Arcad, Broad 

 Green, Excelsior, Fameuse, American 

 Golden Russet, Haas, Hcrren, Krimskoe, 

 Mcintosh, McMahan, Osimoe, Pewau- 

 kee, Red Astrachan, Ribston, Scott 

 Winter, vSimbirsk No. 9, Swayzie, Tol- 

 man. Winter St. Lawrence and Yellow 

 Trans])arenl. 



In 1899 thirty-six of the first crosses 

 bore fruit and five of them were consid- 

 ered large enough and sufficiently good 

 in quality to be propagated. By far 

 the largest ])roportion ])r()duced fruit 

 not sufficiently larger than the mother 

 parent and of so inferior a quality as to 

 be not worthy of propagation, but 

 sixteen x-arieties were thought suffi- 

 ciently jjromising to name. On weigh- 

 ing average sjjccimens it was found that 

 the best of these were from twel\-e to 

 fourteen times heavier than the fruit of 

 P. baccata. The largest fruits, however, 

 were under 2 inches in diameter. 



The l)etter \-arieties of these crosses 

 have little or no astringency and compare 



