Breeding Experiments at the Minnesota Station 89 



ing grain and forage crops, but the work of Prof. N. 

 E. Hansen, the horticulturist, is phenomenal. The 

 amount of fruit and vegetable breeding he has well 

 under way with very limited resources is most com- 

 mendable. On more than forty acres of land he has 

 growing of his own breeding over a quarter of a mil- 

 lion seedlings, mostly hardy fruits. He has made thou- 

 sands of hybrids between the wild fruits of the North- 

 west and of the cold regions of Northern Asia and 

 Northern Europe, with the better kinds of fruits which 

 lack 'in hardiness. He has thus made hybrid pears 

 which may extend the pear-belt hundreds of miles to 

 the northward. Instead of doting on theories he is 

 doing things, hybridizing many things that theories may 

 be developed later. His faith expressed in works is of 

 inestimable value to the Northwest. The orchard on 

 the college farm at Brookings has in it possibilities 

 worthy the name " South Dakota's Million Dollar Or- 

 chard." Prof. Hansen has hybrids between cultivated 

 and wild species not heretofore hybridized and has de- 

 vised most ingenious methods of doing two years' 

 work in one, by growing shrub and tree fruit plants 

 under glass and cross-pollinating them in winter. The 

 Legislature of South Dakota should realize that the 

 State has a large asset in varieties already originated 

 at Brookings and provide Prof. Hansen with better 

 facilities. No other experiment station- horticulturist 

 has grappled with so difficult a problem in plant breed- 

 ing and none is doing the wonderful work of this 

 Americanized Dane. Like Burbank of California he 

 burns up great stacks of seedling sand cherries, rasp- 

 berries, apples and other species, that he may find the 

 one in many thousands which will be a material im- 

 provement. 



