Ness: Breeding Blackberries and Raspberries 



453 



For two years in succession, 

 1913 and 1914, the seeds were 

 sown and a small number of 

 plants as a second generation 

 were raised each year; but no 

 individual appeared more fer- 

 tile, or more promising than 

 those of the first generation. 

 In 1915, the crop of fruit from 

 this first generation was a 

 little more abundant and gave 

 rise to 280 plants, of which 

 125 reached bearing age in 

 1917. But, as the mother 

 plants of the first generation 

 were not screened from for- 

 eign pollination during flow- 

 ering that spring, the true 

 parentage of these plants was 

 in doubt. Upon reaching 

 maturity, I estimated them 

 to fall into the following 

 groups: 28%, raspberry dom- 

 inant; 41%, Louisiana berry 

 dominant; 22%, intermedi- 

 ate; and 3%, indefinable. 



The group in which the 

 raspberry was dominant, 

 might again be divided ac- 

 cording to vigor into two 

 groups, very strong and very 

 weak, with intermediates tend- 

 ing to either extreme. The 

 next thing that caught my 

 eye was that, in the more 

 robust group of the rasp- 

 berry-dominants, there were 

 five plants setting perfect 

 fruits, and with showing for 

 a good crop on each plant. 



These five plants differed 

 from each other in no other 

 feature, except that one, 

 which I named the First 

 Choice, was of a greater size, 

 and, on that account, bore a 

 larger crop of fruit. They 

 were all coarse raspberry 

 forms, with heavy ascending 

 or prostrate, terete canes cov- 

 ered with numerous weak, 

 short prickles. The leaves 

 were very large, of raspberry 

 texture with three to five 

 broadly ovate to rotund, 

 coarsely serrate leaflets. The 



A DEWBERRY-RASPBERRY HYBRID 



The Louisiana dewberry (Rubus rubrisetus), when crossed 

 with the Brilliant red raspberry (Rubus strigosus), gave 

 hybrids in which the characters of the latter were dominant. 

 In the Fi generation the plants were quite sterile, only a few 

 abortive fruits being produced ; in the F2, howeyer, five plants 

 bore good crops of fruit. Leaves and berries of the F2 

 generation are shown above. (Fig. 12.) 



