214 PLANT-BREEDING 



Kelsev ...... x Pissardi 



a ..... X French prune 



I 



Simoni x triflora x b 



I 



c X Americana x nigra 



Alhambra. 



It seems hardly necessary to point out that the Alhambra 

 has neither been the only result of this pedigree nor that the 

 crosses in its ancestral line have been the only ones performed. 

 Quite on the contrary, tliis pedigree is only to be considered 

 as one of the hundred or perhaps thousands of diverging 

 lines by which the main types and their numerous subordinate 

 varieties have been combined with one another. The re- 

 sult has been an utter chaos of mainly excellent lands of 

 prunes such as it was at the time of my visits. Of some of 

 them the pedigree could be traced, but there were many of 

 doubtful superiority, for which it would not be worth while 

 to keep the historical record. 



The selection, of course, must be performed chiefly dur- 

 ing the few summer weeks when the branches of the grafted 

 trees are loaded with ripe fruits. It is a most curious sight 

 to see on one and the same tree, branches with foUagc of 

 different colors and forms, some growing slowly and some 

 already covered with side branches and bearing red, yellow 

 or blue, flat and round, small and large, ripe and unripe, 

 sometimes only half-developed fruits. The total result is 

 strikingly bizarre. When the fruit is ripe, Burbank walks 

 along the rows of trees, marking those which are either 

 decidedly best or useless as far as can be judged by first 

 examination. Then his foreman removes all those which 

 have been marked as valueless, leaving only about half of 

 the stock and making space for new seedHngs to be grafted 



