weight have been selected. Both melons that slip from the stem when ripe 

 and those that have a stem attached like a honeydew can be selected. 

 Final selections must await the growing of several generations to insure 

 true-breeding lines, but the expectation is for an early-maturing honeydew 

 fully satisfactory for commercial marketing. 



Because of the extreme earliness and high quality of Nectarmelon, it 

 has been used in other crosses with muskmelons in an attempt to produce 

 early-ripening varieties. Nectarmelon has been crossed with Bay City 

 Pumpkin muskmelon. an early, large, oblate, ribbed variety grown some- 

 what in Michigan. It has also been crossed with Delicious 51. Both musk- 

 melons have salmon or orange flesh. Likewise, third generation plants from 

 these crosses have been fruited with some high-quality, netted melons se- 

 cured ripened earlier than the Granite State variety. Of much interest were 

 some large, netted melons with nearly white sweet flesh. Not only green- 

 and orange-fleshed melons appeared in the breeding lines, but occasionally 

 there was a single melon having various combinations of the two colors 

 in the flesh. Whether a new variety will be introduced from this series of 

 crosses remains to be seen, although some rather promising melons have 



been grown. 



Purple Pod Peas 



Peas are a popular garden vegetable, but the picking of the pods is some- 

 thing of a chore. A chance remark of a housewife, that it would be nice 

 if only the pods were red so that they would contrast with the green of the 

 plants, led to this pea-breeding project. Shortly afterward, in a seed cata- 

 logue received from England, a variety of peas was noted which was listed 

 as not being bothered by birds. Seed was procured. The variety was a tall- 

 growing, wrinkled pea of fair table quality, but it had purple pods. The 

 shelled-out peas were a light green color. A cross was made between this 

 tall, purple-pod variety and several dwarf varieties of good table quality, 

 namely Mayflower, Tiny Tim, and Progress No. 9. From these crosses, 

 selections have been made for a dwarf, high-quality, purple-pod variety. 

 The cross with Progress No. 9 has been particularly promising. 



The purple pod character proved dominant. Thus in crosses between 

 purple-pod and green-pod kinds, the first generation plants all had purple 

 pods though not so deep a purple color as the purple-pod parent itself. 

 Moreover, the flowers of the purple-pod parent and the F^ plants also are 

 reddish purple in color as well as there being some red pigment showing 

 in the axil of the leaves where they join the stem of the plants. Thus, in the 

 second generation, those plants having only green pigment in the leaf 

 axils and white flowers, if left to blossom, were eliminated as it was known 

 in advance that they would have green pods. It was noted that if a dwarf 

 plant having deep purple-pod color in the F^ was selected, that these se- 

 lections for the most part came true for purple-pod color in the next gen- 

 eration, whereas a selection having a diluted purple-pod color usually 

 segregated green pods in the following generation. 



When a number of lines of dwarf, purple-pod peas had been purified, it 

 was found that the intensity of purple-pod color varied in different strains. 

 The desired purple-pod color in some lines faded badly as the pods neared 

 the proper stage of maturity for harvesting. The kinds that fade have been 



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