248 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the half dwarf garden peas, while trying to increase the yield of 

 grain per acre. The great difficulty with the tall growing field peas 

 is that they cannot be successfully harvested without much labor, 

 and very often the quality is seriously injured by the peas falling 

 down and mildewing. While some of the shorter stalked hybrid 

 varieties thus produced are fairly promising, the effort to grow up- 

 right stems has not been generally successful and now appears well 

 nigh impossible. 



Breeding Soy Beans in nursery plots has progressed most favor- 

 ably till this year, when the cold, wet season caused few plants to 

 ripen before frost. However, since the frost cut out all but the few 

 earliest this may have been our best year, because the early blood 

 is what we especially need. Extreme climatic conditions often serve 

 as our most useful agency in plant breeding, and the few plants re- 

 maining after a disaster are often all which should be retained. 



Breeding Cozv Peas has as yet not gone forward far enough to 

 predict success at securing varieties which will regularly ripen seeds 

 in this climate. All stocks planted in 1902 failed to ripen seeds, and 

 we must return to old seed stocks for a new start. It may be pos- 

 sible to find somewhere in the world forms of this useful plant bet- 

 ter adapted to our northern conditions than the earliest southern 

 kinds we have heretofore tried. The U. S. Department of Agri- 

 culture has been requested to search for earlier forms. 



The co-operative organization connecting the North Dakota, 

 South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin state experiment stations, under 

 the auspices of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, is proving 

 helpful in breeding field crops. In case of breeding cow peas, win- 

 ter wheat and other plants not quite hardy here, it may be possible 

 to bring them north by stages. Once Iowa secures earlier cow 

 peas, its varieties may prove the best foundation stocks with which 

 to begin here. Methods of breeding thus being worked out at one 

 place are helpful at each other place. Dr. Swingle has suggested 

 the possibility of breeding clover, peas, etc., with more ability to 

 collect nitrogen ; also the possibility of breeding bacteria better suit- 

 ed to the conditions of each locality and crop. 



A more thorough study of the flowers of leguminous crops has 

 been begun. The anatomy and physiology of the flowers should 

 be worked out, also the relations of insects to the fertilization of 

 each specie. There has even arisen a dispute as to whether red 

 clover is so commonly cross-pollinated by bees as Darwin and others 

 have assumed. Better methods of handUng the flowers in hybridiz- 

 ing are needed in case of a number of the field leguminosae. 



