BREEDING OF NATIVE NORTHWESTERN FRUTS. 75 



THE BREEDING OF NATIVE NORTHWESTERN FRUITS. 



PROF. N. E. HANSEN, S. D. AGRICULTURAI, COI.I.EGE, BROOKINGS, S. D. 



All who are familiar with the severe conditions with which the 

 planter has to deal who lives on the open prairies of the northwest 

 must realize the urgent need of a hardier list of fruits than we have 

 at present. Before this association there is no need of going into 

 details concerning the great annual losses experienced on the prairies 

 by those attempting to grow many kinds of fruit. Five years ago, 

 upon first coming into the state, my general knowledge of the con- 

 ditions induced me to make a beginning in this work by gathering 

 together wild fruit plants and trees from various parts of North and 

 South Dakota and Manitoba. The determination to follow out this 

 line of work was greatly intensified by attendance upon numerous 

 farmers' institutes and by the many letters received from farmers 

 who had failed in raising eastern and southern fruits. The wo|k of 

 raising seedlings was begun as soon as these plants began to fruit 

 to any extent, which was in 1898. All the plants in fruit were care- 

 fully gone over, and the seeds saved from the plants bearing the larg- 

 est and best fruit. Seedlings were raised the following year and 

 during the past season. A careful count this fall shows a total of 

 over 27,000 seedlings, made up in round numbers as follows : 



Sand cherry, 8,400; plum, 4,000; grape, 5,000; wild strawberry, 

 crossed with tame, 5,000; strawberry, pure native, 1,000; pin cherry, 

 25; choke cherry, 360; go^den currant, 200; black currant, 2,200; 

 buffalo berry, 180; gooseberry, 425; wild raspberry, crossed with 

 tame, 200; raspberry, pure native, 40. Total, 27,030. 



Showing Variation in Sand Cherry Seedlings 



The most promising of new types of fruit is the sand cherry 

 (Prunus Besseyi). Some South Dakota plants were already on the 

 station grounds. Over 5,000 more plants, grown at Marcus, Iowa, 

 by M. E. Hinkley, now editor of the "Fruitman," from seed he had 

 gathered in northern Nebraska, at Valentine, near the South Dakota 



