BUD VAEIATIOiSr IIST THE MARSH GEAPEFRUIT. 109- 



certain trees he decided to top-work those trees with select buds 

 from trees of the Marsh strain. The senior writer was asked to select 

 several desirable trees of this strain as soiirces of bud wood. Five 

 trees were selected for this purpose and the bud wood was cut by 

 men having had long experience in securing bud wood for propaga- 

 tion. After several hours' work one of these men approached the 

 senior writer, who was working in the investigational performance- 

 record plat near by, and said that they had been unable to obtain 

 enough bud wood from the five trees originally selected for this 

 purpose. He explained that, in order to secure an adequate supply, 

 they had cut some bud wood from a neighboring tree. He was 

 asked whether they had examined any of the fruits from this sixth 

 tree, and he repHed, "No, we never cut any fruits, but the tree looks 

 just as good as the other five trees." 



A doubt as to whether or not the additional tree was a desirable one 

 led to an inspection of its fruits. The first fruit cut was f oim.d to con- 

 tain more than 100 seeds. The production of this tree was low and 

 the fruits of very inferior quality. Further examination showed that 

 this tree was a typical representative of the Seedy strain, the very 

 strain, in fact, which the workmen were preparing to eliminate by 

 top-working. Inasmuch as the bud wood from the seedless and the 

 seedy trees had been mixed together in the bimdle of bud sticks, it 

 was necessary to secure an entirely new lot of buds from other trees 

 of the Marsh strain. It is interesting to note that the 118 trees of 

 the Seedy strain top-worked in that orchard at that time have now 

 all come into fruiting, and without exception the fruits borne by the 

 growth from the buds of the Marsh strain are aU commerciaUy seedless 

 and have the valuable characteristics of the fruits borne by the trees 

 from which the buds were taken. 



It can easily be seen from this experience how trees of the undesir- 

 able strains in estabhshed orchards of Marsh grapefruit have been 

 unintentionally propagated under the old system of cutting bud wood. 

 This experience also offers effective evidence of the need of great 

 care in bud selection, which can be most accurately accompfished 

 through the use of individual-tree performance records and definite 

 tree knowledge. 



THE ISOLATION OF STRAINS THROUGH BUD SELECTION. 



The results of the propagation work in these investigations have 

 proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the Marsh strain of grape- 

 fruit can be estabhshed and maintained through the careful selec- 

 tion of bud wood from select trees of the Marsh strain. In the 

 course of these investigations many propagations have been made 

 from select Marsh strain trees. Several commercial orchards have 

 been propagated in this way. So far as these trees have come into 



