white variety. The first cross be- 

 tween these two varieties produced 

 a beautiful popcorn. The ears had 

 seed colors ranging from black 

 through lavender, purple, and pink 

 to white. 



Because of this attractive appear- 

 ance, it was decided to purify a 

 variety which, while pure in other 

 characteristics, would retain the var- 

 ied-colored ears. Selections were 

 made on the basis of earliness and 

 high popping quality. These se- 

 lections were selfed and re-combina- 

 tions were made from each of the 

 selected lines until the Popinjay 

 variety resulted. 



Popinjay is early enough to ma- 

 ture in southern New England. The 

 popping quality is good and the ears 

 are attractive enough to be salable in 

 the form of braided traces at road- 

 side stands. The product is attrac- 

 tive to the tourist trade and at the 

 same time useful for food when its 

 value as an ornament has passed. 



CARNIVAL POPCORN 



The Carnival variety was produced 

 from a cross between Popinjay and 

 Golden Tom Thumb. The object of 

 the cross was to introduce into a 

 new variety the greater earliness of 

 Golden Tom Thumb and its yellow 

 endosperm color. Again selections 

 were made for earliness, for high- 

 popping quality, for productiveness, 

 and for attractive appearance. In 

 comparison with Popinjay, the yel- 

 low endosperm found in some of the 

 kernels underlying the aleurone 

 color of Popinjay add a liveliness 

 and a new variety of shades. Carni- 

 val is, therefore, more attractive in 

 appearance than Popinjay, and has 

 added earliness similar to Golden 

 Tom Thumb. Carnival was named 

 in the autumn of 1948. 



BEANS 



BRILLIANT HORTICULTURAL BEAN 



The Horticultural Shell bean is an 

 important crop in New England. 

 The market prefers bright-colored, 

 seeds. However, the varieties com- 

 mercially grown in the area are of 

 two kinds. The first has bright- 

 colored seeds but poorly-colored or 

 white pods as represented by the 

 Gage, one of several local strains of 

 the horticultural beans not available 

 in the seed trade. Other varieties 

 have light-colored seeds and bright- 

 colored pods as represented by the 

 French Horticultural bean. 



A cross was made between Gage 

 and French with the objective of 

 combining the bright-colored pods of 

 French H orticultural with the bright- 

 colored seed of Gage. In this case, 

 the first generation hybrid gave 

 much of the appearance desired be- 

 cause the red color of the pod and 

 the red color of the seeds are both 

 dominant characteristics. However, 

 when this seed was planted, segrega- 

 tion took place; practically all of 

 which resulted in a return to the 

 original combinations. Apparently 

 there is much linkage between pod 

 color and seed color. But, among 

 these selections, a few plants gave the 

 desired combination in crossovers 

 which were purified. 



The Brilliant variety came from 

 one of them. It has bright-colored 

 seeds, bright-colored pods of fairly 

 good length, is semi-trailing, and is 

 very productive under good growing 

 conditions. The greatest difficulty 

 to date has been to secure an ade- 

 quate supply of seed. The unripen- 

 ed pods bring a premium on the 

 market, so much so that the growers 

 would have to get ridiculously high 

 prices for the seed in order to make 

 it pay for them to mature the crop. 



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