to improve the size and quality of the fruit by cross fertilizing the 

 flowers of Pyrus baccata with pollen from many of the hardiest 

 and best sorts of apples grown in Ontario. This work was begun in 

 1894, an d has since been continued along several different lines. 

 The seeds obtained from the first crosses were sown in the autumn 

 of that year and germinated in the following spring, producing in 

 all about 160 young trees. They were planted in the spring of 1896 

 when many grew rapidly and soon became shapely specimens. These 

 and other young trees, resulting from similar subsequent experiments 

 have been planted from year to year in orchards at Ottawa, Brandon, 

 Indian Head and other northwestern stations. In 1899, thirty-six 

 of the cross-bred apples first produced and grown at Ottawa fruited 

 and five of them were of such size and quality as to justify their 

 being propagated for more general test. Since then several hundred 

 more of these cross-bred apples have borne fruit and the number 

 of varieties worthy of extended cultivation has been considerably 

 increased. Rootgrafts of some of the more promising sorts were 

 early made and these have been tested for eight or ten years past, 

 at each of the northwestern Farms and have shown very slight 

 inclination towards tenderness, even when planted in exposed situa- 

 tions. The cross-bred sorts grafted on roots of seedlings of Pyrus 

 baccata have produced trees, which, so far as they have been tried, 

 seem to be quite as hardy as the wild form of baccata. There seems 

 every reason to expect that they will prove generally hardy through- 

 out the western country. 



There are now growing and doing well at the Central Farm more 

 than four hundred second cross apple trees, consisting of nearly fifty 

 varieties, many of which it is expected will prove of good quality and 

 hardy in the Prairie Provinces and in Northern Ontario and Northern 

 Quebec. A number of these have now fruited, and while the majority 

 bear little, if any, larger fruit than the female parent, a few are con- 

 siderably larger. Martin, which is a cross between Pioneer and Ontario, 

 is 1 1 inches by 2,\ inches in size, and there are others not named which 

 are about as large. Most of these crosses still retain the long, slender 

 stems, the thin tender skin, and the crisp breaking flesh which are 

 characteristic of this crab-apple. The production of the new seedlings 

 has received much attention at the Central Farm which on account 

 of its location is admirably adapted to the process of elimination of 

 tender sorts. 



Persons who have originated seedlings were invited to send speci- 

 mens of the fruit for examination and if a variety was thought pro- 

 mising, scions were asked for. By this means a collection of 83 varie- 



32880 4 



