318 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY REPORT. 
varieties of the spreading type. It was thought that the French 
upright, owing to its shape and character of growth, had many ad- 
vantages for a garden tomato, its chief disadvantage being that it 
ripened so late. The object of the cross, therefore, was to combine 
the desirable qualities of both types. At the end of the first season 
it was thought that they were in a fair way to accomplish this end, 
but disappointment evidently came later. It was noticed that the 
French upright was more prepotent than the spreading garden type 
as the majority of the offspring resembled the former type. As this 
has been taken by investigators later as one of the best plants for 
illustrating Mendel’s Law, it is strange that some thought of the 
proportions in which the different types were represented in the 
offspring did not occur to these investigators. However, they were 
after new and superior varieties rather than demonstrations of any 
laws of breeding. 
One of the fruits crossed by the Station was the strawberry. At 
different times, the work having extended over several years, 1,700 
seedlings, both parents being known in every case, were raised upon 
the Station grounds and fruited. Most of these were discarded at 
the close of the first fruiting year. Others were saved for further 
testing. Ultimately, however, all were discarded, they being deemed 
less valuable than already existing varieties. The percentage of 
valuable plants among these seedlings is said to have been very 
small and peculiarly few of the seedlings resembled their parents. 
One of the interesting things in the crossing of plants is what is 
known as xenia. This is a name given to those instances where 
pollen of one variety when placed upon the flower of another variety 
so changes the fruit that it resembles that of the plant from which 
the pollen came. Instances of this in corn and other plants had 
been observed many years ago and occasional cases had been noted 
amongst fruits. In all the various crosses of strawberries, grapes 
and other plants carried on at this Station, not a single instance had 
been noted of the occurrence of xenia. 
A question that came up incidentally with the preceding investi- 
gation was that of the effect of rainfall upon pollination. This was 
a joint experiment between S. A. Beach of this Station and D. G. 
Fairchild of the United States Department of Agriculture. In this 
experiment two Dutchess grapes and two Mt. Vernon pear trees 
were sprayed continually with a Vermorel nozzle attached to an 
ordinary garden hose so as to produce an artificial rain. Observa- 
tions were made from time to time as to the condition of the blos- 
