Sweet Salad Pepper 



This early, tomato-shaped variety came from a cross of first generation 

 hybrids of Merrimack Wonder and Pennwonder which had been pohi- 

 nated in the greenhouse with pollen of the round, pungent variety, Large 

 Red Cherry. This cross gave oval-shaped fruits which were hot in taste. 

 Purified lines were selected for earliness, sweet thick-fleshed fruits with a 

 cavity only sufficiently large to enclose the seeds, and an ability to set 

 heavy crops of fruits. One such attractive breeding line of pepper was 

 named Sweet Salad. It is the earliest, red, thick-walled, sweet pepper we 

 have grown. It is of value in northern states where dry weather prevails 

 during early September. After beginning to ripen, the red fruits may 

 develop a moldy core during extended periods of rainy weather. 



Other Pepper Breeding 



As an interesting novelty, a very small sweet pepper is being perfected. 

 This has gone through two stages, one crossing Pinocchio sweet pepper 

 with a small, red-cherry variety and selecting from its descendants the 

 smallest sweet peppers that could be procured. These have again been 

 crossed with a very tiny, round, hot pepper and from this cross the second 

 generation selections have been made. Some perfectly round tiny sweet 

 ones have been procured. They are not yet at the naming stage. From the 

 same cross, some extremely early-ripening, hot peppers have been se- 

 lected. If there is enough demand for extremely-early, hot peppers, these 

 may also be continued to purification. 



Red Rutabagas 



As stated in the discussion of Red Chinese cabbage, it became possible 

 to select for a root crop from among the variable population of plants re- 

 sulting from a complex ancestry of Chinese cabbage, red cabbage, and 

 rutabaga. Those plants in the segregating generation having the most red 

 pigment and which showed some tendency toward swollen roots were 

 selected and taken into the greenhouse for forcing into bloom during the 

 winter. These selected plants were inter-pollinated and some of them were 

 backcrossed to a yellow-fleshed rutabaga. From the field-grown crop 

 matured in the fall of 1952 and in ensuing generations, continued selection 

 for those individual plants having good-shaped roots with superior red 

 color was practiced without reference to whether the selected plants came 

 from seeds resulting from the inter-pollinated or the backcrossed gener- 

 ations. Eight to twelve selected plants were inter-pollinated to give seeds 

 for the next generation. With each succeeding generation, less variability 

 in the amount of red color and root shapes could be discerned. Any plants 

 so infertile as to not produce a seed crop were eliminated. 



At harvest time in 1954, white-fleshed and yellow-fleshed roots Avere kept 

 separate. Thus lines for yellow-fleshed rutabages having intensified external 

 red color were found to be breeding true in 1955, while the white-fleshed 



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