80 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 369 



of lettuce contain no pigment, all the hybrids had spots of red pigment on the 

 leaves. This is an undesirable character. However, according to a study of the 

 genetic behavior of pigments in lettuce by R. C. Thompson of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, this character will not remain in future generations. 

 The second generation was produced in the fall of 1939 and only a small percentage 

 was pigmented. In this cross between a light green lettuce and a dark one, the 

 F2 generation produced 50 light green and 164 dark green plants. The other 

 desirable characters were also redistributed in a desirable way that will enable 

 the best plants to be selected in very few generations. 



Celery. The growers who tried samples of Summer Pascal celery seed distrib- 

 uted last year gave most favorable comments and the celery met with almost 

 state-wide favor. The most impressive demonstration of the desirability of a 

 product that has high quality is the fact that during a season of unusually low 

 prices Summer Pascal celery sold for at least twice the price of yellow celery. 

 One grower reported selling three hundred dollars worth of celery from the tea- 

 spoonful of seed sent out as a sample. Seed of this variety has been made avail- 

 able commercially and will be grown extensively next year. It is a celery that 

 under some conditions is more difficult to grow, but the high quality justifies the 

 extia care. Summer Pascal celery seed was obtained from a grower in another 

 section of the country who had kept it within the family for over forty years. 

 It is not a perfected strain and many single-plant selections have been made 

 in an attempt to purify it. Experiments attempting to force the plants to seed 

 in the greenhouse during the winter in time for next year's crop have failed. This 

 work is being continued and plants have also been sent to the Federal Experi- 

 mental Station in Puerto Rico in an attempt to speed up the seeding of these 

 plants. 



Variety trials with over thirty varieties of green celery were made for the 

 second year. The results of this work indicate that most of the varieties will 

 not bleach with sufficient ease for local conditions. Many of the varieties have 

 stalks so rough as to be unmarketable on the Boston market. 



Tomatoes. Waltham Forcing and Field Station No. 22 have become widely 

 used as trellis tomatoes. The Early Trellis which was distributed last year 

 proved to be too small to be of value. It is of great interest to note that most 

 of the Massachusetts growers who had both Waltham Forcing and No. 22 re- 

 ported that the latter produced larger fruit. Growers in the section around Lowell, 

 however, reported the reverse to be true. At the Field Station it required 4.6 

 fruits to make one pound of the Waltham Forcing tomatoes, and 3.6 fruits of 

 the No. 22. 



For the past few years selection work has been under way to improve the 

 internal quality of the Waltham Forcing. After this year's crop, it was concluded 

 that the particular undesirable characteristics could not be eliminated by selec- 

 tion. A new program of hybridization will be undertaken to improve the quality 

 of these tomatoes. The hybrid material that has been made in the past and has 

 been under trial will be kept. 



A comparison of Waltham Forcing and No. 22 with other strains of Comet 

 in the variety trials indicates that their most outstanding characteristics are 

 heavy setting of fruit, a large percentage of No. 1 fruit, and an outer cell wall 

 that is resistant to bruising and keeps the tomato in a firm condition long after 

 many varieties have become unsalable. 



Waltham Forcing, which was originally developed for use in the greenhouse, 

 maintains its popularity. 



Rutabaga or Cape Turnips. Two years' trials of all the available varieties and 

 strains of Rutabagas, both white and yellow fleshed, which could be obtained 



