444 NEW JERSEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



Last year there were two plants (Nos. 67, 177) which showed a 

 most remarkable vigor, overreaching the ordinary plants from the 

 same mother fruit surrounding them. These "Giants," as they 

 ■were called, both resulted from crosses of " Champion " upon "Sun- 

 rise," and their fruits were red, like the pollen-plant, while in vigor 

 of vine they exceeded that of the seed parent. Number 67 produced 

 eighty-three fruits, all of them uniformly of small size, averaging an 

 inch and a quarter in diameter, with the seed cavities, four to six in 

 number, filled with a pulp but bearing only a few seeds — a half 

 dozen or less. 



The second very exceptional plant (No. 177), the greatest in size 

 of all, bore only twenty fruits, red, like those of No. 67, but some- 

 what smaller and with the seed almost entirely absent from them 

 all. In these the seed cavities were nearly obliterated, and the fruit 

 became a nearly even mass of flesh, firm in texture and of superior 

 -quality. 



Toward the close of the season the stems of both the above plants 

 were layered, and cuttings were also taken, and thereby many plants 

 were obtained that, taken into the greenhouse, bloomed and fruited 

 during the winter. Several of these fruits were entirely solid, and 

 any provision for seed production had disappeared. Fruits of this 

 character are shown in the lower half of Plate X. 



There is still much to be done to increase the size of the fruits, 

 which, if accomplished by breeding with normal plants, may neu- 

 tralize all that has been gained in the way of -seedless fruits. The 

 aim is to reduce the seed production to a minimum and not over- 

 come it entirely ; in short, to have a fruit of good size, with a rich, 

 solid flesh, in which may be only enough of seeds to preserve the 

 present way of propagation instead of requiring the gardener and 

 trucker to resort to non-seed methods, as is necessary with the 

 modern pineapple, banana, navel orange and the still later seedless 

 lemon. 



It may not be foreign to the subject in hand to state that the seed- 

 lings from these giant plants proved to be a very variable lot, with 

 no two alike. Some were malformed dwarfs, that produced but a 

 a single cotyledon, no plumule, and failed to grow, while others were 

 misshapen in stem and leaf. Some were of the "Champion" type, 

 others resembled the "Sunrise." Between the lines, the student 

 of the problems of evolution may read some things that, while not 

 conclusive, are certainly suggestive. The red and yellow tj'pes, 

 ^chosen for^the breeding, were widely enough separated to throw some 



