THE AIMS AND METHODS OF THE AM. BREEDERS' ASSN. 337 



society to become the first association to take out a membership. 

 I beheve there are today fifteen life memberships. We need money 

 to carry on the work of the association, and I am here to ask you 

 to take out a membership. • This organization is new, its suc- 

 cess is not yet altogether assured, but I have great faith in it. If 

 you will go into this association as an organization I feel that it will 

 be a great stimulus to it. 



NOTES ON FRUIT BREEDING FOR THE NORTHWEST. 



TROF. N. E. HANSEN, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, BROOKINGS, S. D. 



This is a subject I do not care to talk about very much. I prefer 

 to make history rather than to write about it. Hence in the present 

 stage of my work in improving northwestern prairie fruits I would 

 sooner talk about the weather until more seedlings have been in 

 bearing long enough to determine their ultimate value. The secre- 

 tary, however, insists that I tell you something about the work, and 

 you have all learned before this that it is impossible to get out of it 

 if Mr. Latham insists in securing anything that he thinks will help 

 out the horticultural report. 



In handling so many thousands of seedlings my endeavor in re- 

 cent years has been to get some clue to the quality of the fruit while 

 the plants are yet small. It would greatly lessen the labor involved. 

 No positive correlations of this kind have as yet been observed. 

 However, the twO' essentials of vigor and perfect hardiness are in- 

 sisted upon from the beginning. With the sand cherry, of which I 

 have a patch of over 25,000 plants of the third generation under 

 cultivation coming into bearing the next year, I have found some 

 seedlings that are quite free from mildew, which so commonly affects 

 the plant, especially in moist seasons. It is my belief that we can 

 breed a mildew-resistant race of this promising prairie fruit. In 

 a patch of over 6,000 native plum seedlings I insist on, as far as 

 possible, perfect foliage as well as fruit of large size and good qual- 

 ity. In a patch of over three acres of strawberries of half wild, 

 half tame ancestry, I insist on the leaves being as free from rust as 

 possible, but it may be impracticable to do this, as our wild straw- 

 berries have the foliage afifected in this manner. Whether we get 

 our blight-proof apple remains to be seen. Any plant that will 

 not endure 40° below zero with the ground bare of snow and come 

 out unharmed the next spring is rejected. In disease-resistance 

 some queer facts crop out. Some pure seedlings of wild roses mil- 

 dewed while their hvbrids with cultivated races were free. 



