COMPARATIVE VALUE OF PEDIGREE PLANTS. 135 



Comparative Value of Pedigree Plants. 



PROF. C. B. WALDRON, HORTICULTURIST, AGRI. COLLEGE, N. D. 



I am not going to talk on pedigree in plants, but I am going 

 tc tell something of the work we have been doing relative to try- 

 ing out this term what you have seen in horticultural literature, 

 and especially in advertisements, as to pedigree strawberry 

 plants. I needn't call any names ; some of you people are familiar 

 with the firms. 



We bought a considerable number of strawberry plants four 

 years ago from nurserymen all over the United States, some that 

 used the term pedigree plants and others that did not. Our soil 

 at Fargo is very uniform, and these were grown in small plats, 

 side by side, and, of course, given identical treatment. They 

 were well known varieties, like the Warfield, Dunlap, Lovett, 

 William Belt, etc. We have been selling the fruit of them, and 

 this year we got a pretty good productive test. We found a very 

 great difference in strains of the same variety. 



In the Warfield, for instance, we found certain plots that 

 would give us only 42 grams of fruit to the plant, in other plots 

 we found that the plants would average as high as 155 grams to 

 the plant of the same variety. With the Lovett we found a 

 greater difference, from sixteen grams to the plant up to 146 

 grams, and so on through. With Senator Dunlap we found 

 certain strains running as low as eighty grams to the plant, and 

 from there up to 122. 



Well, here is the thing we are looking for, to find out if any 

 of these so-called pedigree plants are any better producers than 

 the common plants that we bought from nurserymen that did 

 not advertise the term pedigree. You are familiar, I suppose, 

 with some of the firms in this country that have been using the 

 term "pedigree" in connection with strawberry plants for quite 

 a number of years. One of these firms that was making the 

 greatest use of it evidently has been doing so without very good 

 authority, because in the case of the Senator Dunlap this par- 

 ticular firm's plants gave only 81 grams to the plant, while an- 

 other firm which has never made any claims for pedigree plants, 

 their plants gave 122 grams to the plant of the Senator Dunlap, 

 the average through the plot. 



The Warfield plants from this same firm that has adver- 

 tised pedigree plants so persistently gave forty-two grams to 

 the plant, while another hard-working, honest nurseryman, who 



