hardy grapes that do not need any winter
protection. At the Fruit-Breeding Farm this problem has been taken up on
a large scale. The Beta grape is hardy but lacks in size and quality.
This variety has been used to grow many thousands of seedlings from, and
also used in cross-breeding with the better varieties. A large percent
of Beta seedlings come true to seed or nearly so. This gives us several
hundred varieties equal to Beta, and some of them are quite an
improvement in size and quality over the parent and practically as hardy
as the wild grape. Many of these are worthy of propagation where
hardiness is the main object. Very few of the hybrid grape seedlings
have fruited, but indications are that in a few years we will have
grapes equal in size and quality to any of our commercial varieties.

Experiments are being carried on in a small way with pears, roses and
nuts. Our native hazelnuts can be improved by selection and crossing
with the filberts. The same is true with the Rosa Rugosa and our native
roses.

In breeding strawberries we probably have had better success than with
any other fruit we have attempted to improve. The breeding work was done
in the greenhouse during winter and early spring and seed planted as
soon as berries were ripe. The plants were transplanted to flats and
later planted out in the field, where they remained until fruiting, when
the selections were made. We have fruited approximately 60,000
seedlings. These have been weeded out so there are about 400 left, and
these will be cut down to a few of the best varieties. At present we
have one everbearing and one June-bearing variety which have proven to
be very productive, of good size, good quality and good plantmakers.
These plants have been sent out as premiums to members of the State
Horticultural Society for the last two years and will be distributed the
same way next spring.

In raspberries we have several varieties which are promising. King x
Loudan, No. 4, is a variety that has been sent out as premium the last
three years. This variety is amongst the hardiest, the berries are dark
red, very large and the most productive of all the varieties growing on
the place. This has also been sent out as premium through the
Horticultural Society.

In plums we probably have had the best success. Some of the first
breeding work was with Burbank x (crossed with) Wolf and Abundance x
Wolf. We have twenty-eight seedlings of Burbank x Wolf and forty-f