THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



varieties of 



(Fio 1354 



-A branch of Pyrin baccata in fruit, half 

 natural size. 



many of which surpass in vigor and per- 

 fection of form and coloring any hither- 

 to known. His dark fohaged cannas of 

 the French type excel in quantity and 

 vigor the latest continental introduc- 

 tions. About a dozen of these crea- 

 tions are described in his catalogue for 

 1898. 



Mr. VVm. Saunders, Director of the 

 Experimental Farms of the Dominion, 

 has produced new varieties of wheat, 

 barley and peas. From the report of 

 1 896 we gather that seven of the fifteen 



cross-bred 

 springwheatrank among 

 the twelve sorts which 

 averaged the heaviest 

 crops at the six experi- 

 mental farms. One of 

 them, the Preston, a 

 cross between the La- 

 doga and Red Fife, in 

 a three years' test at all 

 these farms, exceeded 

 every other sort by two 

 bushels per acre, and 

 at the Central Farm, Ot- 

 tawa, by three bushels 

 per acre. The object 

 sought has been achiev- 

 ed, namely, to increase 

 the number of vigorous 

 and productive sorts of 

 high quality and early 

 ripening. In barley, 

 where it was sought to 

 induce earlier ripening 

 in the two-rowed ; and 

 in the six rowed longer 

 heads and a greater pro- 

 pensity to stooling ; in 

 addition to increasing 

 the number of vigor- 

 ous and productive vari- 

 eties, remarkable results 

 have been secured. 

 Seven of the new crea- 

 tions in the two-rowed appear in the 

 fourteen sorts that in the tests at all 

 the farms took rank among the six 

 most productive, and four in the six- 

 rowed out of the fifteeen. In peas, 

 sixteen of the cross-breds take their 

 place among the thirty-two sorts which 

 ranked in like tests as of the twelve most 

 productive. 



Seven years of experiment in our 

 North West has demonstrated that the 

 hardiest fruit trees obtained from Russia 

 and elsewhere give no reasonable hope of 



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