green fruits that store well until mid winter. NH ^4 has been late in coming 

 into bearing, but the fruits have sufficient merit so that some nursery trees 

 have been propagated and are being distributed for further testing. Pear 

 blight has not been a problem at Durham. New Hampshire, and there is no 

 reason to assume that these selections have any resistance to this disease. 

 Besides the above cross, over a hundred seedlings having as parents Bartlett, 

 Bosc, Clapp's Favorite. Gorham and Lawrence in various combinations fruit- 

 ed in 1957. One selection has been held for further testing. 



Half-High Blueberries 



Both the northern highbush blueberry. Vaccinium corymbosum L. and 

 the lowbush species, V. lamarckii Camp \V . pennsylvanicum Lam.), are 

 native in southern New Hampshire. In severe winters, parts of the bushes 

 above the snow line may be killed, though the lowbush frequently escapes 

 injury because of snow covering the plants. Both of these two wild species 

 are tetraploids (2n^48) and natural crosses occur. Many 'iialfhigh" bushes 

 found in open neglected fields and pastures are presumably the result of 

 such hybridization. These hybrids have darker berries than the parental 

 species which have light blue fruits. Some wild bushes of intermediate stature 

 are probably segregates from the "halfhighs" or from backcrossed genera- 

 tions. Plants derived from the two species interbreed freely. 



This fact has encouraged breeding work started at the New Hampshire 

 Station in 1941 when controlled crosses were made between superior named 

 varieties of the highbush and selected plants of lowbush blueberries." 

 First and second generations have been grown and fruited since that time. 

 F. V. Coville of the Lnited States Department of Agriculture in 1911 made 

 use of a selected wild lowbush from New Hampshire called Russell in 

 crosses with highbush and three cultivated varieties, namely, Rancocas, June, 

 and Weymouth, have resulted. All three have more of the highbush character- 

 istics than are sought in the present breeding work with these two species. 

 Desired particularly is a round-topped bush two feet tall that might be 

 covered by snow naturally or which could be winter-mulched with straw 

 cover and that would have large light blue berries for hand harvesting. Even 

 though lacking full winter hardiness, such a variety might be grown by 

 home gardeners well beyond the present northernmost limits of successful 

 culture of the highbush varieties. 



The desired stature for bushes is found in the F| of highbush x lowbush, 

 but all Fi plants of Pemberton x lowbush and Atlantic x lowbush had dark 

 colored fruits of small to medium size. None of seven F^ plants when 11 

 years old had exceeded 2o inches in height. Among 954 F^ -bushes that were 

 recorded when 4 years old, the height varied from 5 to 43 inches. Many of 

 these bushes approximated 2 feet in height, but none had the desired combina- 

 tion of large size, light color, high flavor, good scar, and other favorable 

 horticultural fruit characteristics that are being sought. Only 8 plants had 

 leal light blue berries, most were dark in color. One plant had reddish ripe 

 berries and 28 had shiny black fruits. In addition, four plants had berries 

 having black skin color with a very heavy persistent bloom and have been 



* Selections made by W. W. Smith in wild l)liitd)eiry fielils near Gilturd. New 

 Hampshire. 



