BREEDING 195 



of strawberry breeding to secure varieties adapted to a 

 certain region. In 1906 he crossed an unknown culti- 

 vated variety with a species which is indigenous to the 

 Alaska coast from Muir Glacier to Prince William Sound ; 

 it is considered to be a form of F. chiloensis. Some of 

 the varieties thus produced are valuable for the coast 

 region of Alaska, but not for the interior. 



Selecting the parents. — Having conceived an ideal of 

 a variety that will be superior to existing sorts in at least 

 one important respect, the next step is to secure for its 

 parents those varieties or species that possess this char- 

 acter to the most marked degree. Usually improved 

 varieties are selected, but, if necessary, wild forms of 

 Fragaria may be used. The various native species, 

 F. virginiana, F. chiloensis, F. calif ornica and others, hy- 

 bridize readily, including those marked departures from the 

 type that some botanists distinguish by separate specific 

 names, as F. canadensis and F. americana. For many years, 

 Albert F. Etter, of Ettersburg, California, has been crossing 

 F. chiloensis, F. calif ornica and F. vesca upon some of the 

 standard varieties, especially the Sharpless and Parry. 

 The Ettersburg Trebla is a composite of all these forms. 

 Recently he has used F. indica, also. F. mexicana, which is 

 quite similar to, if not identical with, F. vesca, has been used 

 successfully. Rarely can F. elatior, the Hautbois straw- 

 berry, be used to advantage; it does not cross readily 

 with F. virginiana or the common cultivated varieties, 

 neither does it have characters that are desired in the 

 strawberry at this time. 



Luther Burbank, of Santa Rosa, California, describes 

 one of his remarkable hybrids between the strawberry and 

 the raspberry, as follows : ^ " Out of seven or eight hun- 



1 "New Creations of Fruits and Flowers," June, 1893, p. 35. 



