EXPERIMENT STATION REPORT. 411 



quite dififerent species may produce is a matter for the future, but 

 possibly an acceptable pickle may result. 



Many attempts were made to cross the trumpet creeper {Tecoma 

 radkans (L. ) upon the Martynia, but without success. While closely 

 related, and in many peculiarities the same, one is a hardy vine and 

 the other a tender herb, a combination of which characteristics one 

 is not likely to secure. 



The breeding together of the ordinary field flax (Linum usitatissimum 

 i., and the ornamental species X., grandiflorum L. (?), has been at- 

 tempted, and several full-sized seed vessels were secured upon the 

 latter species ; they all but one proved to be seedless. In this in- 

 stance the two species are widely separated in this, that the blue flax 

 of the field has all its sex organs alike ; but in the scarlet species of 

 the gardens there are two lengths of the female organs. Plants with 

 sex organs thus developed are combined with difficulty with other 

 species. It is said that plants of one form of pistils are sterile to 

 their own form and need the pollen of the other form of flower for 

 fecundation. If this is the case it only heightens one's desire to 

 effect the cross, if it is a possible thing. 



PLANT BREEDING AND IMPROVEMENT IN OUR 

 EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



The following is an abstract of a paper read at New Haven, Conn., 

 November 12th, 1900 : ='•'- 



A brief letter of inquiry was sent to each Experiment Station, and 

 from the fifty stations now on the official list reports were received 

 as follows : Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Con- 

 necticut (New Haven and Storrs), Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, 

 Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Lousiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, 

 Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New .Jersey, New Mexico, 

 New York (Geneva), New York (Cornell), North Carolina, Oklahoma, 

 Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, 

 Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. 



The list of Experiment Station responses are taken up alpha- 

 betically, omiting those reporting no work in plant breeding and 

 selection. 



^l/«6a7na.— Bulletin 56, May, 1894, is upon *' Crossing for the Pur- 

 pose of Improving the Cotton Fibre ; " Bulletin 71, April, 1896, ia - 



*The fourteenth annual convention of the Association of American Agricultural) 

 Colleges and Experiment Stations. 



