132 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



parasitic diseases, even though it may possess all other qualifications 

 it never will prove a profit maker to its owner. Third. Productive- 

 ness is one of the essential properties a tree must possess if it gives 

 adequate returns for its cost, care and expense in cultivation. 

 Fourth is size, which gives added value, even if it has not an at- 

 tractive color or fine quality. Fifth is color. A highly colored red 

 fruit is preferable to a green or yellow for commercial pur- 

 poses, even if there is not much quality. Sixth is quality, the most 

 appreciated of all by every connoisseur, which when combined with 

 size and an attractive color gives us a ven,- valuable product. 

 Having so many early fall and winter varieties, if long keeping is 

 added to the above qualifications, we have an ideal fruit worthy of 

 a hard struggle to obtain. 



If I understand correctly the proper method of cross-breeding 

 seedling fruits for a specific purpose, the dominant character of the 

 pollen used determines largely the essential qualities possessed by 

 the tree or plant produced. 



The same laws of nature prevail in the production of seedling 

 apple trees as in the breeding of animals ; to a large extent like will 

 produce like, resembling one side or the other of the cross, though in 

 many instances in a modified form. The size, color and vigor 

 usually comes largely from the pollen, or staminate. side; the con- 

 stitution, habit of growth and productiveness from the pistillate side 

 of the cross ; of course all the varying qualifications of excellence 

 will crop out in the descendants, showing that no two animals or 

 trees will be exactly alike, each having an individuality of "its own. 



Quoting from that noted German professor, Anton Kerner Von 

 rvlarlian. "Tt has been established, beyond all doubt, that modifica- 

 tions of form directly induced by conditions .of soil or climate are 

 not hereditary and that every change of form which persists in the 

 descendants is only brought about as the result of a process of fer- 

 tilization, or, in other words, that new species can only arise through 

 fertilization. Herein lies also the solution of the mar\'elous phe- 

 nomenon known as the alteration of generations, and the question 

 why plants in general flower and undergo fertilization." 



"Fertilization consists in the coming together and uniting of 

 two portions of protoplasm which have originated at a distance 

 from one another." 



Luther Burbank says : "Cross a hardy and tender plant and 

 often the tendency is toward the hardy; the waves, so to speak, 

 sweep ever up toward the hardy to the highest limit of the hardy, 

 and some few sweep up over ; it is these few we must catch and 

 make use of for, on an average, the waves go no higher than the 

 point of hardiness. Thus as the work progresses, the plants which 

 now and then show peculiar hardiness, beyond the normal, are 

 chosen to carrv forward the tests. From these verv hardiest ones 



