Shamel: Bud Variation 85 
few years ago many people had grave 
doubts that anything of value could ever 
be accomplished by seed selection. We 
are now ready to assert that equally 
good results can be achieved by bud se- 
lection as has been accomplished by seed 
selection, in which we had the good for- 
tune to be of some service in the case of 
the improvement of certain varieties of 
corn, tobacco, and other crops propa- 
gated from seed. 
SELECTION FOR PERFORMANCE *® 
The best method of bud selection, we 
believe to be that of securing buds only 
from those trees having satisfactory per- 
formance records. The performance 
records of trees selected as parent trees 
should include not only a complete rec- 
ord of several successive seasons’ pro- 
duction, but also all available or possible 
information as to the presence of sports, 
or oft-type fruits, in the crops; and all 
other information of value in consider- 
ing the relative value of a tree as a source 
of budwood for propagation. We hope 
eventually to include progeny tests of 
select parent trees for consideration in 
the selection of the best budwood. 
When this point is reached, we will have 
established sources of genuinely pedi- 
greed buds. In order to lay the founda- 
tion for pedigreed buds, performance 
records of parent trees are essential. 
With this information, together with 
performance records of the progenies of 
the parent trees for one or more bud 
generations, pedigreed trees will become 
an accomplished fact. 
After the parent trees have been se- 
lected, the next step is the selection of 
the budwood for propagation. As a re- 
sult of our experience in this connection, 
we have adopted the practice of cutting 
for budwood only that growth bearing 
typical fruits. This has been called a 
radical step. It has many advantages 
to recommend it. The only objection 
that has been offered against this method 
in practice, so far as we know, is that 
such budwood is small and the buds may 
not live as well as the ‘‘fat”’ sucker buds. 
We have assisted in the propagation of 
hundreds of thousands of fruit-wood 
buds during recent years. One illustra- 
tion of the successful growth of these 
buds will show how they have behaved 
on the whole in our experience. <A co- 
operator budded a nursery of more than 
thirteen thousand orange seedlings in 
1914, using only fruit-wood buds cut 
from Valencia and Washington Navel 
orange budsticks, none of which was of 
greater diameter than that of an ordi- 
nary slate pencil. This budwood was in 
every case bearing typical fruits and was 
of the period of growth preceding the 
bloom producing these fruits. The bud- 
sticks contained, on the average, five 
buds each Out of over thirteen thous- 
and seedlings so budded, only two buds 
failed to grow. We could offer many 
other similar experiences if necessary, 
and have only one report of any diffi- 
culty with the use of such buds in either 
seedling stocks or topworked bearing 
LEeES. 
BUDWOOD CAREFULLY PICKED 
A little reflection will reveal some of 
the reasons for using this character of 
budwood. The most important one 
is that 1t enables the bud cutter to avoid 
taking budwood from off-type limbs or 
sporting branches. This is particularly 
important where few or no performance 
record data are available. This method 
naturally tends to the cutting of most 
budwood from the best bearing type of 
trees. The old sucker budwood method 
led, naturally, to the cutting of the 
most budwood from the poorest bearing 
type of trees. While we have no abso- 
lute proof, we feel inclined to believe, 
from our observations to date, that 
fruit-bearing budwood produces earlier 
bearing trees than those propagated 
from sucker wood. It is absolutely 
certain in our experience that the buds 
from fruit wood secured from heavy 
bearing type trees produce trees of 
considerably earlier bearing habits than 
those propagated from sucker wood cut 
from trees having a tendency for the 
production of large numbers of suckers. 
After the typical fruits, by which we 
mean the best, and only the best, from 
the select standard type trees, have 
been severed from the budsticks, they 
can be included in the regular pick, 
providing care has been used in cutting 
them so that they will not have been 
