New Yorx AGRICULTURAL ExPERIMENT STaTIon. 363 
cross-fertilized. This brought up the question whether some 
grapes are better than others for fertilizing the self-sterile kinds or 
whether any variety other than the one to be fertilized will answer 
the purpose if it blooms at the same time. Similar questions, in 
one form or another, are apt to arise wherever American grapes 
are cultivated. 
Searecely any definite information on this subject could be 
found. being a subject of considerable practical importance to 
viticulturists, arrangements were made to begin the investigation 
of it in 1899. The results of the first season’s work in this line 
are set forth in the following preliminary report of the investiga- 
tion. 
WORK FOR 1899. 
PLAN. 
Twelve varieties which were selected because they are nearly 
or quite self-sterile, were artificially cross-pollinated in the manner 
hereafter described. Twenty-four kinds of grapes were tried as 
fertilizers for these varieties. Most of them were self-sterile or 
nearly so, others fully self-fertile, and still others intermediate 
between these two extremes. ‘The twelve varieties which were ar- 
tificially cross-pollinated were not emasculated. For the purpose 
of preventing accidental cross-pollination by means of insects or 
otherwise, the clusters to be tested were enclosed in paper bags 
before the blossoms opened, and were kept thus covered during 
the entire blooming season except the few minutes when the bags 
were opened to introduce the clusters which furnished the pollen 
for the test. The clusters which were selected to furnish the pol- 
len were likewise covered before they came into blossom and were 
kept covered, even after they were removed from the vine which 
bore them, until they were applied to the self-sterile variety upon 
which their pollen was to be tried. The bagging of the clusters 
was done after the manner illustrated and described in Bulletin 
157. By thus protecting all of the blossoms which were used in 
