PEDIGREED STRAWBERRY PLANTS 



A GREAT deal of discussion has been 

 taking place among strawberry 

 growers, both in the United States and 

 Canada, in regard to the claims of excel- 

 lence that have been made by growers of 

 pedigreed strawberr}- plants. The result 

 of enquiries made by The Canadian Horti- 

 culturist indicates that Canadian growers do 

 not believe that so-called pedigreed plants 

 are any better than ordinary stock that has 

 been given good treatment. 



" The thoroughbred plant people have 

 been doing an injury to honest nurserymen 

 by their false statements," writes Mr. R. H. 

 AIcDowell, of Tillsonburg. "' 1 he experi- 

 ment stations should have exposed their 

 fraud long before this. There may be 

 something in the pedigree theory if properly 

 worked out, but I have proved to my own 

 satisfaction that the plants sent out as thor- 

 oughbred pedigree [plants are in no way 

 superior to the average scrub stock. 



" In order to test the matter I selected 

 the Michel's Early, as some plants of that 

 variety will stool out and send up a number 

 of fruit stalks, while other plants apparent- 

 ly strong and well matured will fail to put 

 on any fruit. It looked quite reasonable 

 to me that if they were propagated year 

 after year from the productive plants a more 

 productive strain would result. I had taken 

 no pains to select the productive plants in 

 my patch, and had been growing them in 

 that manner nearly ever since their intro- 

 duction. I sent for some pedigree plants 

 of the above variety. They came promptly. 

 I threw out a nuniber of poor, little, sickly, 

 immature ones that I did not consider worth 

 planting and planted the rest beside a rovv' 

 containing an equal number of plants of my 

 own scrub stock. I gave them the same care 

 as my own stock. They made a fairly good 

 row. Mine made too many plants as I did 

 not thin them. The fruit on the thorough- 

 breds was no larger or better in quality than 

 that which cfrew on mv scrubs, and while I 



did not keep account of the exact nun-^ber 

 of baskets picked from each I should judge 

 we picked nearly double the amount of ber- 

 rise off mine that we did from the others. 



" I dug plants off the above rows and set 

 out a patch next spring. Both made a good 

 row, but I could see no difference in them. 

 They had become acclimated and accus- 

 tomed to ni}- mode of treatment. If there 

 was any difference in fruiting qualities it 

 was in favor of my scrubs. I found as 

 many barren plants among the thorough- 

 bred plants as among my own, and came to 

 the conclusion that pedigree plants are a 

 fraud." 



SHOULD HAVE THE PLANTS TESTED. 



" Breeders who profess to know all about 

 good strawberry plants," suggests Mr. 

 Charles H. Snow, of Cummings Bridge, 

 Ont., " should send their plants to the ex- 

 periment stations to have them tested beside 

 those of well known plant growers. Im- 

 provement of plants by selection of the par- 

 entage stock is, in my opinion, correct, but 

 the life of a plant, especially a strawberry, 

 is too short to attach a pedigree to it." 



Considerable attention has been given to 

 this subject by Mr. M. Crawford, of Cuya- 

 hoga Falls, Ohio, who has come to the con- 

 clusion that the characteristics of a variety 

 of the strawberry or any of our fruit bear- 

 ing plants cannot be changed, increased or 

 fliminished by any system of selection, culti- 

 " ation, pruning or fertilizing. 



EXTRA\AGANT CLAIMS HAVE BEEN MADE. 



*' Some extravagant claims have been 

 made by one or two United States straw- 

 berry growers for their so-called thorough- 

 bred or pedigree plants," writes Prof. H. 

 L. Hutt, of the Agricultural College, Guelph. 



" These men know nothing about what 

 pedigree means. There are men, such as Bur- 

 bank, of California, and our own Mr. Groff, 

 of Simcoe, who have bred plants through 

 generation after generation until they have 

 what might well be called highly bred or 



