BREEDING 213 



varieties could be greatly improved in this way. If this 

 were true, it would remove the method from the field of 

 propagation to that of breeding. 



R. N. Kellogg, of Three Rivers, Michigan, became the 

 leading exponent of this method ; he called plants propa- 

 gated in this way "pedigree plants." In 1902 he de- 

 scribed his method thus : ^ " I have, for years, grown all 

 my plants from ideal, or perfect, specimens, found here 

 and there in the field, beginning the search for them in the 

 growing season. Those most promising — showing large 

 fruit crowns and healthy foliage — were staked and num- 

 bered and the following spring restricted by removing 

 half the blossom buds, to prevent pollen exhaustion. 

 After the fruit is set, only two berries on each fruit stem 

 are allowed to ripen, so that the form, texture, flavor and 

 color of the berries may be determined. Each plant is 

 scaled on the basis of one to ten, and the one showing the 

 greatest number of points of excellence is given the blue 

 ribbon and becomes the mother of the future plants of that 

 variety on the farm." 



*' Pedigree " strawberry plants have not proved to be 

 permanent departures from the type of the variety. As 

 grown at the South Dakota and Ohio Experiment Stations, 

 the Central Experiment Farm of Canada, and elsewhere, 

 they have proved to be practically identical with the 

 variety of which they were supposed to be an improved 

 form. At the Missouri Experiment Station, continuous 

 bud selection for high yield over a period of fifteen years 

 gave no consistent gain in the productiveness of the plants 

 propagated from heavy-yielding plants over those propa- 

 gated from low-yielding plants.^ It is evident that few, 



1 Mem. Hort. Soc. of N. Y., 1902, p. 171. 



2 Bui. 131, Mo. Exp. Sta. 



