R. M. KELLOGO'S GREAT CROPS OF 
is just as good as one from an extra good plant if 
well manured and cultivated, which we now know 
is not true. 
How did you make the beginning?— The 
first thing to do was to fix in the mind the ideal 
type of tlie berry I wanted to produce and then go 
into the fruiting field to search for the plant that 
approached the nearest to it. ' In the spring when 
first set the search began. If the plant had an especial 
fine stocky foliage it was located by a stake and 
numbered, and every essential feature noted on a 
scale of one to ten. The next spring half the blos- 
som buds were removed from each stem before they 
opened to prevent pollen exhaustion. When the 
fruit had set only one or two berries on each stem 
were allowed to mature to determine size, color, 
texture and flavor, and to encourage the habit of 
fruit formation by exercise in thgt direction. When 
all the berries were ripe and the scale of each num- 
ber footed up we were able to determine definitely 
■which plant possessed the greatest number of points 
of excellence and this was then selected to become 
the mother plant oi all that variety on the farm. 
Kick 01111161:. 
physical is the result of well directed exercise and 
this is by no means confined to animal life but is 
also shared by plants even in a larger degree. 
Kothing is engaging the attention of the people 
at present more than physical development. 1 he 
columns of our magazines and newspapers are 
filled with advertisements of all sorts of devices for 
developing the muscles, and athletics are now 
a part of the curriculum of all our schools and 
colleges. 
Excessive muscular exercise is destructive and 
is to be guarded against, which is especially true 
of the organs of reproduction in plants as well as 
animals. 
The ideal plant which we select for the mother 
plant is chosen to get the best variation in type 
and fruiting stamina. We prune off all the exces- 
sive buds and permit it to bear all the berries it 
can without exhaustion, just as the athlete under 
the constant care of his skilled trainer, performs 
feats of strength and thus continually builds up 
muscles and augments his power of endurance, but 
his trainer never allows him to do so much as to 
bring him near the danger line of exhaustion. 
We have learned that a tree or plant which has 
had all its flowers removed through many genera- 
tions will cease to bear flowers or fruit and will 
devote its energies to wood and node growth for 
multiplying its species. 
Thus it is that the practice of taking scions 
from young trees in nursery rows through many 
generations before they have borne fruit have so 
degenerated fruit trees that crops have become 
generally so lipht that profitable apple growing is 
a tiling of the pa-^t. 
What was tlie origin of your work in 
breeding plants in this way?— My experience 
in tliis line dates back seventeen years when I com- 
menced growing berries for market. I was greatly 
impressed with the wide difference in fruitage of 
my plants. Some producing many fine berries 
while others, by their side grew berries of an in- 
ferior qu;ility. Careful examination convinced me 
that the secret lay in the physical condition of the 
plants. They had been taken from the edges of 
matted rows as was then the general custom. The 
theory being that a plant taken from a poor plant 
Glenn Mary. 
Its runners were carefully potted and transferred 
to a special propagating bed and given extra_ good 
culture to stimulate further good qualities in the 
runners which were allowed to form for our next 
year's planting. 
From these, selections were made the next year 
for the ideal "mother plant" and thus through all 
these years the Pedigree shows parentage of the 
best individual plant on the farm of that year kept 
in full fruiting vigor by restriction. 
By this method every plant which declined in 
fruiting vigor or from any other cause was at once 
discarded. 
The result of this practice under my system of 
the most thorough tillage was that the fruiton each 
plant rapidly improved in quality and quantity. At 
the beginning my crops averaged 75 to i<>o bhshels 
to the acre of commonly good fruit but under this 
method the yield rapidly increased until it reached 
from three to five hundred bushels of very superior 
berries. 
The fame of my fruit spread far and wide and 
secured for me special customers who engaged 
everything in advance at fancy prices. 
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