254 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in improving flowers have found that in many cases all the seedlings re- 

 sulting from crossing two distinct varieties or species were nearly or quite 

 identical; and that new varieties identical in all respects could be pro- 

 duced at will by using the same parents. This explains the curious fact 

 of the production of practically identical varieties by i^wo or more experi- 

 menters working independently at different times and places. 



The underlying principle in all these cases appears to be that each 

 parent has its fixed degree of prepotency, and that the most prepotent 

 parent controls the characteristics of the offspring. If both parents are 

 of mongrel pedigree, and hence not prepotent, the progeny will be very 

 variable, because the latent tendencies to reversion in both parents be- 

 come united in the offspring. Hence, for best results we should use, if 

 possible, a prepotent type for one of the parents, which has the most 

 essential characteristic, viz: hardiness. 



There are some interesting examples of this on the college grounds at 

 Ames. Many of the east European apples run in families that come 

 nearly true from seed, and the prepotency of such varieties has been evi- 

 dent when crossed with American varieties of mongrel parentage. The 

 seedlings of Russian apples pollenized with American varieties are very 

 uniform, looking much more like a row of root-grafts than a row of 

 seedlings. They are Russian in leaf, bud, and habit, showing the prepo- 

 tency of that race. The seedlings of American apples pollenized with 

 Russian varieties are less uniform; while the seedlings of crosses of 

 American with American varieties, both parents being of the west Euro- 

 pean type, are a scrubby, very irregular and unpromising lot of trees, both 

 parents being mongrels with no fixity of type. 



The evidence up to date in crossing fruits leads us always to select the 

 female parent to impart hardiness and the male parent to impart quality 

 and season of fruit. 



The histories of Rogers' Hybrid grapes and Hovey's Seedling straw- 

 berry are good examples of hardiness being inherited from the female, 

 and desirable characteristics of fruit from the male parent. 



SELECT THE HARDIEST TYPE. 



In selecting the female parent, the hardiest form of the species should 

 be used. The boxelder of Virginia is as tender as a peach in Iowa, while 

 the same species from northern grbwn seed is perfectly hardy. The race 

 of apples from west Europe is tender here in the Northwest, while the 

 race from east Europe has proved its vastly greater degree of hardiness. 

 The silver spruce from the west slope of the Rocky Mountains is tender 

 on our prairies, while the same species from the east slope is a model of 

 beauty and hardiness. Eastern grown seed of our common forest trees is 

 much inferior in hardiness to seeds of the same species from our nearest 

 river bottoms. All these are examples indicating that care must be taken 

 to choose the type of the species that is best adapted to our climate. 

 Rogers' Hybrid grapes are not fully adapted to the Northwest, because 

 neither parent is fully adapted to prairie conditions. So Rogers' work 

 should be done over again for the far Northwest, using, if possible, the 

 indigenous species for the female parent. The same is tlfe case with the 

 wild strawberry of the Eastern states. Progress in strawberry culture in 

 the West was slow until Downer of Kentucky and others began to use the 

 western type, from which to develop varieties better adapted to Western 



