STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



125 



This we must admit is not the case ; there are unseen and oppos- 

 ing forces ; bad heredity, and the tendency to reversion confront us 

 at every point. To illustrate : We have on our grounds a seedling 

 crab we call the Middlesex ; one of a lot of seedlings f r 

 Yellow Siberian ; but instead of taking the color of its parent, yellow, 

 it diverged so widely as to be a dark red ; this result may have been 

 through natural cross impregnation ; or a reversion toward more 

 remote ancestr^^ 



So in ever}" attempt we make, no matter how carefully, we are 

 liable to reach a result differing from our aim, simply through the 

 laws of atavism, and reversion. 



But we should not allow such a possibility discourage us, for we 

 find that the momentum of high culture in connection with cross- 

 impregnation, gives an impetus along the new line of work, promis- 

 ing grand results. 



Again in aiming at high results I would advise when obtainable and 

 as far as lies in the desired line, to use new varieties believing them 

 to be more impressable than old ones. For instance we believe that 

 varieties like the Jewell and Belmont crossed together and subjected 

 to most favoring circumstances mare likely to make an advance than 

 old varieties, like the Hove}^ and Wilson, for a similar reason, to use 

 an analogy, that when a foreign family immigrate the young members 

 always get our language first, or that a puppy can be trained to do 

 what an old dog cannot. 



In raising new seedling strawberries we should take for the mother- 

 plant a pistillate, having as they do a higher development of the 

 female organs, place the plant under a small frame and as a pollenizer 

 use the variety coming nearest to your ideas of a perfect berry. 

 Thus, suppose you take the Crescent, the Jewell or the Gipsy, choose 

 an ideal plant and use the Ontario, Jessie or Belmont as pollenizers. 

 In this way let a represent the female and x the male plants. 



