2 54 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tion. If you had taken the raspberry of southern France, which 

 is of a very fine quaUty, and started to adapt it to Minnesota ten 

 thousand years ago, you might have accomphshed something in the 

 way of securing hardiness, but I don't beUeve this society is will- 

 ing to undertake that thing now. (Laughter.) 



Now a word as to what has been done in strawberries. I have 

 been working along that line for years and raised 8,000 seedlings. I 

 gathered strawberries together from North and South Dakota, Man- 

 itoba and Assinaboia, and after testing a large number of the stand- 

 ard sorts I found they were all badly weakened after a hard winter, 

 but those pure wild ones were perfectly hardy. They were great 



Raspberry breeding at South Dakota Exp. Station. The field after selections were made. 



plant makers ; if anything, were too full of vitality and made too 

 many plants. After gathering this material together from wild 

 ones, I imported some everbearing strawberries from France. Tests 

 were made with those eight thousand seedlings and all were plowed 

 under except about 225. That is "infant mortality" for you. But 

 those that remained increased and have stood several winters with- 

 out protection. I will not protect any plant ; I draw the line at 

 giving any protection to outdoor plants. I find as a result that I 

 fear that I can count the ideal ones out of the eight thousand on 

 the fingers of one hand ; I had over three acres of these forty or 

 fifty fair to good sorts. I sent out two sorts last year, and 

 now wish that I had sent out only one. For a farmer's berry pis- 

 tillates are not what we want. That knocks out over half of the 

 good seedlings, and I have only a few perfect flowered varieties. 

 Some are promising as commercial berries. There are good pistil- 



