COMPARATIVE VALUE OF PEDIGREE PLANTS. 137 



You might get pedigree plants in two thousand years or 

 something less, you might get a strain that would eliminate the 

 variation between the individuals, but up to this time it has not 

 come. 



With apples, not many years ago we had a very skillful 

 horticulturist with us who advised us to get our scions from 

 the best bearing trees. Well, that may be good advice and it 

 may not be. The man who gave the advice was one of the best 

 horticulturists of this country. We all recognize that fact. 

 Whether he was entirely right in this particular is another mat- 

 ter. In Missouri experiments with apples, scions were propa- 

 gated from two different lots. The scions in one lot were taken 

 from a Ben Davis apple tree which had been an exceptionally 

 poor producer. Those from the other lot were taken from a Ben 

 Davis apple tree which produced the largest and best apples. 

 The propagated trees yielded three crops. The report doesn't 

 say how many trees were originally put in, but I should imagine 

 that a dozen or so trees were grafted from scions in each one 

 of these plots, one all grafted with scions from the poor pro- 

 ducing trees and the other grafted with scions from the good 

 producing trees. 



These trees had yielded three crops at the time these con- 

 clusions were taken. During this time there was no perceptible 

 difference in size, color, grade or quality of the fruit from these 

 two lots of trees. Impartial observers have been unable to make 

 a distinction as to quality between apples produced in the one 

 lot or the other. The yield from the low-producing parent is 

 slightly less than those from the high-producing parents, but the 

 indications are that there is no more variation between the two 

 lots than there is between individual trees in either plot., 



Now that is as much as we know of the subject at the pres- 

 ent time. (Applause.) 



Muskmelon Handling. — Investigations in co-operation with the Bureau 

 of Chemistry were inaugurated in 1916 for the purpose of determining the 

 proper time for picking muskmelons and the best methods of handling the 

 crop. The work in California during 1916 demonstrated the necessity of 

 more careful handling. A large percentage of the deterioration in transit 

 and on the market was traced directly to rough handling in the field and in 

 the packing and loading sheds. When melons are picked before ripening, 

 the deterioration is less than in riper fruit, but a large part of the crop 

 reaches the eastern market in a condition unfit for consumption. — U. S. 

 Dept. Agri. 



