Peaches and apricots are not hardy in Minnesota, and consequently nobody thinks of planting them. Some years ago we started crossing the sand cherry with peaches and apricots. The results were a number of seedlings, but all turned out to be worthless; the trees after several years growth were small, or grew mostly in bush form. They blossomed every spring but never set any fruit on account of some imperfection in the flowers. Four years ago we started to use the Compass cherry as the male parent, and this combination is more promising. The seedlings make a good growth and a fairly good sized tree, practically as hardy as the Compass cherry. The seedlings resemble the apricots and peaches in blossom, tree and foliage. This fruit will not be exactly an apricot or a peach, but may take the place of these fruits in a small way.
No. 7 Hybrid Seedling Plum—from Minnesota State Fruit-Breeding Farm, at Zumbra Heights.
The Compass cherry crossed with Prunus Pissardi, or purple leaf plum, is a very interesting combination. We have about fifty seedlings growing. Most of them have the purple foliage and bark, are very ornamental and can be used with effect for lawns and landscape planting where large shrubs are wanted.
The grapes. The Vitis Labrusca, such as Concord, Worden, Moore's Early and many other varieties, are not hardy unless protected during winter. There is a demand for 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-five Abundance x Wolf which have fruited several years. We have varying degrees of hardiness in these seedlings. Most of them have withstood our winters at the fruit farm without injury, as well as in most of the southern half of the state.
Among the Abundance x Wolf hybrids eight of the seedlings are only partly hardy, while of the Burbank x Wolf only one or two have shown themselves to be particularly weak in this respect.