<<BUD SELECTION’' 
A 28 Year Development Originated by Chas. E. Greening 
Recognized as One of the Few Great Scientific Plant Breeding Discoveries of AN Time! 
Improves Upon Nature’s Process of Evolution — Gives Definite Heredity Control. 
Twenty-eight years ago, Charles E. Greening started a program of research 
which he knew would bring no fame or fortune in his time. But he also knew that 
he^had found the’key which would open the door to a new world in plant breeding. 
Imbued with the urge to make his contribution to progress, he persisted, and when 
he passed on, others carried on. 
Thus the now world-famed Greening ‘‘Bud Selection” was launched, and today 
the benefits of this 28-year-old research program are to be found in orchards in 
every fruit-growing section of the continent, and, indeed, around the world. . . 
benefits which have brought better orchard produce to the consumer and sub¬ 
stantially increased returns to the orchardist. Charles E. Greening has surely made 
his mark in the fruit-growing and plant-breeding world! 
Several generations ago, to indulge in such a practice as ‘‘Bud Selection” would 
have been rank heresy—‘‘interfering with the natural processes.” But today we 
know that it is an aid to Nature and one which she amply rewards. 
Briefly, simply and non-technically, ‘‘Bud Selection” is the Greening-discovered 
practice of growing plants from buds whose growth and bearing characteristics 
are KNOWN and CONTROLLED, as the result of many, many years of painstaking 
testing, recording and development. 
By thus controlling the inherited characteristics, it has been possible to grow 
trees which, it is DEFINITELY KNOWN IN ADVANCE—before the orchardist 
plants them—will have every desirable characteristic for most successful culture 
and produce. 
The trees will be healthy and vigorous, highly resistant to disease and climatic 
extremes, will mature earlier and with larger crops of uniform fruit of the choicest 
size, color, shape and flavor, to command best market prices and readiest sale. 
Trees are marked by numbers and records of their performance 
kept for years before propagating buds are taken. Note marking 
A WORD OF CAUTION of branches 
Unfortunately the phrase “Bud Selection” can 
be loosely used to describe trees whose so-called 
“pedigree” goes no farther back than the year they 
were planted. The phrase was created by 
Greening to describe Greening - grown trees 
whose parentage (back for generations), whose 
history and performance characteristics have been 
known, observed and recorded over a period 
of many years—and whose development and 
growth has been deliberately controlled to breed 
into them all of the most desirable requirements 
for successful growth and bearing. 
It is wise to remember, too, that “Bud Selec¬ 
tion” is not only an original Greening develop¬ 
ment, started TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO, 
but that Greening also has the experience and 
background of no less than 88 years of practical 
nursery specialization in this field. 
Greening “Bud Selection” records actually 
were started by Charles E. Greening 28 years 
ago, and while the method of “Bud Selection” 
may be copied, to equal this 28 year study and 
development would require an equal period of 
time. 
THE SECRET OF FRUIT YIELD IS IN CELL GROWTH 
UNDER THE BARK 
Nature starts with cellular, living tissue and 
creates a tree. This tree grows buds into branches, 
and in maturing these branches bear fruit. 
Greening started with the fruit and worked 
backwards, to find out the natural process and 
how nature mixed up the life cells so that mixed 
branches and mixed fruits appeared on the same 
tree. 
From the fruit we proceeded to the branch, 
from the branch to the bud. 
It took remarkable patience and determination 
to find this answer. None had ever attempted to 
control these accepted “whims of nature.” None 
had ever asked why they would occur. 
Meantime orchardists continued to buy and 
plant trees of unknown growth and bearing 
characteristics. When the trees matured and bore 
poor crops, were ravaged by disease or produced 
large crops of culls, the orchardist had to accept 
it as his luck. He planted a mistake and waited 
five years to discover it, toiling over worthless 
trees, giving them his labor and materials—to bring 
nothing but disappointment and loss. 
But patient and determined Greening research 
men were. One after another false trails were 
followed through to the bitter end and fresh 
starts made. 
At last came the discovery that the secret lay 
in the cellular tissue of the tree or branch emanat¬ 
ing into the progeny bud. But this was just the 
start of the true “Bud Selection” process. 
He Wanted to Know . . . 
What fortitude and endless patience must have 
been possessed by Chas. E. Greening to pioneer 
this innovation of fruit tree development, knowing 
that he was starting a never ending task—particu¬ 
larly one, which in no conceivable manner, could 
he capitalize in his lifetime. But start he did, with 
the determination to solve if solved it could be— 
nature’s inner secret in stabilizing in progeny 
characteristics that make varieties desirable. 
Chas. E. Greening, like all other nurserymen, 
before starting his epic-making endeavor, accepted 
the theory that buds or scions from trees of any 
variety would produce trees of like kind. It was 
this, now disproven theory, that is in a large meas¬ 
ure responsible for the presence in orchards every¬ 
where of thousands of unprofitable trees. Chas. E. 
Greening sought the reason, knowing that finding 
it would solve the orchardists ever present problem 
of planting mistakes. 
What Mr. Greening wanted to know was; Why 
did fruit of the same tree differ in characteristics? 
Why, for example did a cherry tree of a certain 
variety produce some cherries with long willowy 
fruit stems and some short fat stems? Why were 
some cherries on the same tree ready for picking 
and others partly and often entirely green? Why 
were some cherries little and some big? Why on 
some apple trees, was fruit all red and some striped 
with green? Why some fruit was of the standard 
size and standard shape of the variety—and others 
misshapen and off color? These questions and 
scores similar confronted students, pomologists and 
orchardists alike. “Bud-Selection” has given the 
answer! 
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