7 
Ai^F'Ai.r'A, Sugar Be:gts, Cantauoupe:s. 
evidence of the urgent needs, and the manifest interest in our work 
of developing a disease resisting cantaloupe. In order to test the 
merits of our rust resisting* selection under various conditions, we 
have furnished a few seed to all inquirers from various parts of the 
United States to those who were willing to make the test in a co¬ 
operative way. 
As our work of selection was only well begun, we could only 
furnish what might be termed a second grade selection of seed, as 
the few seed of the first selection was reserved for our own work. 
The following are brief extracts from the reports that have been 
received so far at this time: 
“The rust-resistant plat furnished fine luelons after the other plats 
were all dead with rust.’’-—E. C. Green, Texas Experiment Station, 
“The melon seed received from you this spring-, gave the best melons 
I have had in previous seasons.’’—J. D. Fraser, Leamington, Ontario. 
“I found the Pollock, or rust-resistant melon superior in quality to 
the others, but many of them grew rather large.”—‘Chas, L. Goodrich, Glen¬ 
dale, Maryland. 
“The reports of three growers who tried the seed you sent me, show 
that this melon was unusually free from rust, although other melons in the 
immediate vicinity were badly injured by it.”—Samuel B. Green, Minnesota 
Experiment Station, St. Anthony’s Park. 
“Until about a week ago the vines showed little or no rust, but at 
the present writing the leaves are badly spotted; the fruit is good size, and 
the vines may withstand the attacks until after the melons ripen; I think I 
gave the variety a very severe test, as the seed were planted on soil that a 
year ago was devoted to the same crop, which was entirely wiped out by 
the rust.”—H. D. Haskins, Hatch Experiment Station, Amherst, Mass. 
“The vines from the disease-resistant seed which you sent me, cer¬ 
tainly did resist diseases much better than the old Netted Gem.”—F. L. 
Stevens, North Carolina Experiment Station, Raleigh, N. C. 
“I ran all other melons out of the hotels with the rust-resistant “Pol¬ 
lock” seed I got from you.”—A. Van Wagenen, Sioux City, Iowa. 
From twenty-nine reports from growers in New Jersey, who tested 
the rust-resisting seed that we furnished Byron D. Halsted of the New 
Jersey Experiment Station, eighteen reported very favorable results; eight 
reported that they observed no difference, and three made unfavorable re¬ 
ports; the seed furnished for this test was pure “Pollock” strain, which 
only had had one year’s selection for the rust-resistant feature. 
The popularity of the cantaloupe as a fruit on the American 
table does not seem to diminish, nor does the output or the returns 
to the grower seem to decrease; these facts are unquestionably due 
to the greater attention being paid to the quality of the seed se¬ 
lected for planting and also the improved refrigerating and mar¬ 
keting facilities. About the only progress the melon growers have 
made in regard to seed selection, is the almost unanimous selec¬ 
tion and use of single strains of seed by the various associations, 
thus insuring uniformity. In general, they have selected the strains 
that were early, prolific, uniform, and also desirable in appearance, 
with little or no attention being paid to disease-resisting tendencies; 
in fact, some prejudice exists against the rust-resisting strain, as 
it is thought to be later and less productive than the strains in 
general use. This apparent lateness of the rust-resistant strain is 
probably due to abnormal ripening of the other strains, rather than 
to any inherent lateness in the rust-resistant strain. 
