The Rocky Ford Cantaloupe Seed Breeders Assn 
also in the work of solvinj^ this problem. 
In one of our fields of melons in the Im¬ 
perial Valley there appeared plants that 
was resistant to the new form of mildew. 
From these plants were saved stock seed 
which was sent to Rocky Ford for plant¬ 
ing last summer. 
Naturally the appearance of the new 
form of the disease was not expected. But 
when it did appear, it developed that one 
of Dr. dagger’s strains, with which we 
had been working, had the necessary re- 
OBSERVATIONS OF 
THE PAST 
Planted at Rocky Ford, this new re¬ 
sistant melon, which we are calling the 
“D-2,” surprised even ourselves. As 
demonstrated here at Rocky Ford this 
season, the D-2 gives promise of entire¬ 
ly supplanting the No. 45. A large acre¬ 
age of the D-2 is being planted in the 
Imperial Valley this season. There is 
little reason to doubt that it will prove 
to be as successful as we are expecting. 
A melon of exceptionally fine quality, 
it holds up under shipment to bring to 
the consumer a cantaloupe of enjoyable 
flavor. A rough heavy net protects the 
melon in handling. A heavy yield of 
good melons is one of its distinguishing 
characteristics. In no melon that we 
have ever raised, since the old Ten 
Twenty-Five back in 1919, have we found 
so many perfect individual types as in 
the D-2. 
Naturally the D-2 is not perfect. Cer¬ 
tain features of the melon will be sub¬ 
jected to breeding work for improve- 
sistance. Of course we immediately set 
to work using this strain as the founda¬ 
tion stock. 
In this California field there were 
plants here and there, scattered over a 
field of 107 acres, that stayed green and 
fresh when the plants all around them 
had entirely succumbed to the disease. 
From these scattered resistant plants we 
harvested 17 pounds of seed which was 
immediately returned to Rocky Ford for 
planting. 
THE D-2 DURING 
SEASON 
ment. The melons run to large sizes and 
it will be necessary to select for smaller 
sizes in order to make it better fitted for 
crating. But such characteristics can be 
improved. Time and care can easily ac¬ 
complish these ends. 
Their interest in the new melon caused 
many commercial growers from Califor¬ 
nia to make the trip to Rocky Ford to 
visit our D-2 field this season. Without 
exception these growers share our en¬ 
thusiasm for this melon. Their enthu¬ 
siasm was concretely expressed by their 
taking the entire supply of this seed 
grown this season. 
We take pride in the work we have 
done with the D-2 cantaloupe. We are 
pleased that we could present such a fine 
cantaloupe to the trade. At this time we 
pause, however, to acknowledge our debt 
to Dr. dagger, for without the wonderful 
work that he performed it would have 
been impossible for us to have given to 
the growers our new D-2 cantaloupe. 
Only the splendid work of Dr. Ivan C. Jaffser made melons such as these possible. 
His years of untiring work in the breeding of cantaloupes laid the foundation 
for the development of such varieties as the ‘“D-2.” 
Page Five 
