From our experience with Northern Spy as a mother I am lead to believe that it is one of the best parents to use in cross-breeding. In the seedlings just described it has impressed its good characteris ties on a large proportion of its progeny, although a self sterile or partly self sterile variety. The McIntosh apple has done the same and this also is regarded as a very desirable parent.

PROFESSOR STUCKEY: Did you notice much difference in hardi

ness?

PROFESSOR MACOUN: A very few died, the rest are fine, strong, hardy trees. We shall know in a few years whether there is any

difference in hardiness.

A MEMBER: How does the Ontario do in your country? PROFESSOR MACOUN: In certain limited areas it is regarded very highly. In Prince Edward and some parts of Nova Scotia, it is well thought of, but it bruises very readily and on that ac count it is not very highly recommended.

A MEMBER: What about the hardiness of the Baldwin apple!
PROFESSOR MACOUN: It is not as hardy as Northern Spy.
A MEMBER: Is the black rot canker prevalent in Canada?
PROFESSOR MACOUN: Yes, in some parts of Ontario.

PRESIDENT HEDRICK: Professor Macoun's paper brings up a problem in regard to the naming of varieties. He has named sev enteen varieties, and I take it for granted that they are all better than their parents.

PROFESSOR MACOUN: No, no!

PRESIDENT HEDRICK: At our station we have named twelve varieties out of two hundred and fifty seedlings. Our rule is to not name a seedling unless it bears better apples than the parents.

PROFESSOR MACOUN: We cannot grow Northern Spy at Ottawa because of the severe cold, but some of its seedlings are hardy and are almost as good as the parent, these have been named.

There

PRESIDENT HEDRICK: Anyhow the problem is before us. are a number of experiment stations growing seedling fruit and we are going to have a considerable number of new varieties. In ten or fifteen years there will be a thousand new varieties. This means that our list of fruits, not only apples but other fruits, is growing and will grow to a tremendous extent in the next quarter century.

PROFESSOR MACOUN: At present we have the following method of distributing these seedlings. We have sixteen experiment stations in Canada, and we are sending these to our different stations and having them tested thoroughly and are sending them also to agricultural colleges and individuals. My idea is not to promote them ourselves but let them bear elsewhere and in that manner they will find their way if they are worthy.

PRESIDENT HEDRICK: We will pass on to the next paper on the program, "Factors Which Determine Size and Color of Peaches, by Professor Blake.

FACTORS WHICH DETERMINE COLOR AND SIZE OF PEACHES.

BY M. A. BLAKE, Experiment Station, New Brunswick, N. J.

Good size and high color are two characters, of the greatest importance in fruit that is to be sold upon the market. In fact, these two characters more often determine the price paid than does the quality of the fruit. It is then of direct practical value for the fruit grower to understand the factors which determine these characters in his fruits.

It has been shown that high color of apples is largely determined by maturity and sunlight, and peaches are no exception to this rule. If the fruit of the peach is picked while it is still green and immature it will be lacking in color after it has softened no matter in what locality it was grown. This point is plainly evident and does not require further comment.

The favorable effect of sunlight upon the coloring of the fruit is easily determined or demonstrated. During the past season specimens of Belle peaches were bagged upon the trees while they were still small. At ripening time the bagged specimens were entirely without any red coloring whatever, while the specimens upon the tree which were not bagged were well marked and colored with red. If the bags are of thin paper, some light will pass through and the specimens will have some red color, but if the bags do not allow the passage of any light the red coloring will be absent.

It is commonly observed that the fruit upon rapidly growing peach trees is of inferior color. This is explained by the fact that the foliage is larger and more dense and the fruit is kept partially or completed shaded.

Peaches grown in different localities of the same state may vary considerably in amount and brightness of color. This is not always due to a variation in the amount and vigor of foliage or to the relative compactness of the tree growth, but is more often due to a difference in the actual proportion of bright days and the intensity of the light. In some localities moisture and fog in the atmosphere considerably reduce the brightness of the sunlight as photographers well know, and this directly affects the coloring of fruit. Aside from these factors, however, other influences may bring about color changes in fruits although these changes can be considered more as abnormal colorings than natural ones.

During the past season numerous specimens of peaches were observed in the state experiment orchards at Vineland with vari ous unusual colorings. These consisted largely of purple spots or areas varying greatly in form and extent. They were all apparently the result of injury of one sort or another to the skin of the fruit. In some cases the injury was undoubtedly caused by curculio. Other specimens with similar injuries, however, failed to show these unusual colorings, and there is undoubtedly another factor concerned in the case.

The season of 1913 was a most unusual one in New Jersey. Abnormally warm weather prevailed in late winter and very early spring which induced peach trees to bloom and set fruit early. The trees with the setting fruit upon them were then exposed to unusually low temperature conditions for such an advanced stage. in their development.

This had the general effect throughout the state of checking the growth of the twigs to a sufficient extent to encourage the sending of sugar into the fruits in a larger measure than common. Dr. M. T. Cook, of the New Jersey experiment station, has observed that plants in the tropics with a high content of sugar frequently show unusual colorings as a result of injuries. These two facts apparently explain the occurrence of the unusual colorings upon peaches the past season. Spray injury to the foliage and fruit of the peach, will sometimes result in purplish shades of red in the coloring of the fruits. It is now quite certain that such colorings may not be entirely due to the reduction of the foliage, but are also brought about by injuries to the skin of the fruits under cer tain conditions of development. Such injuries are of course relatively slight as those severe enough to puncture the skin commonly result in more or less calloused or russeted areas or even distinct depressions. The principal factors in the natural coloring of peaches are of most interest to fruit growers, however, and here maturity of the fruit and the amount of sunlight are the ones involved.

We will now consider the influences which determine the size of peaches. In order to produce fruit successfully a tree must be able to maintain a certain a amount of growth and vigor. To this end both plant food and moisture are essential. Given favorable conditions for growth, the development of the tree depends upon taking up of crude plant food by the roots, and photosynthesis

the

by the leaves. In a normal tree the elaborated plant food is stored up as starch in the leaves and stems during the day, and converted into the form of sugar at night, and is then available for the support of growth and development in various parts of the tree. While a tree is young and is making both rapid twig and root growth the plant food prepared during the day is expended at night in vegetative development.

It has been observed that rapidly growing peach trees commonly set a few fruits at the beginning of the second and third season's growth, but that these fruits fall from the trees in June even though apparently perfectly pollinated and free from serious insect or disease attacks. The rapid vegetative growth of the young trees makes such a demand upon the starch and sugar daily elaborated in the leaves that none is available to the fruit and the latter falls from the tree. Where the growth is not as rapid an occasional fruit may continue to develop, especially upon some small branch which is not making a very active growth. writer has observed peaches mature and ripen upon nursery trees the second summer after budding. But these trees were upon dwarf roots and did not expend all their nergy in vegetative growth.

The

Peach trees commonly produce considerable fruit the fourth summer after planting if all conditions have been favorable, but if the twig growth is excessive the fruit will be somewhat smaller than upon older trees under similar conditions. Trees of this age somewhat checked in development the third or fourth season may, however, produce very large specimens.

From these observations one is led to believe that excessive vegetative growth results in fruit of a reduced size. But on the other hand is the opposite true? Does very slow and meager wood growth result in fruit of the largest size, and if not what becomes the limiting factor?

Some observations made in co-operation with the experiment station and department of plant pathology, in the state experiment peach orchard at Vineland the past summer, are of interest in this connection. Sections of leaves and twigs of peach trees in various stages of growth were examined for starch in the early morning just at sunrise. The twigs of rapidly growing young trees showed no starch whatever. The twigs of older trees in bearing showed some starch varying in amount according to the rate of growth. The slower and shorter the twig growth of a vigorous normal tree the greater was the starch content and the larger the fruit. The large size of the fruit may be explained by the fact that very little of the starch and sugar formed in the leaves during the day was used in supporting the vegetative processes of the tree, but large amounts were directed into the fruit. That such a condition tends to the production of fruit of large size there is no doubt, but the influence of other factors needs to be pointed out.

When a peach tree is partly defoliated by a caustic fungicide applied as a summer spray the size of the fruit is below normal

and yet the tree growth may be slow or even completely checked. The loss of foliage in such a case means a marked reduction in the amount of sugar and starch elaborated and even though the quantity used in supporting vegetative development is small, yet the fruit also receives but a small amount. To secure fruit of large size it is as important to have a large amount of healthy vigorous foliage for the production of a large amount of starch and sugar as it is to prevent the use of all the sugar for vegetative processes. Trees with thin, weak foliage produce but little starch and sugar so that both tree growth and size of fruit are greatly diminished.

Under favorable conditions peach trees commonly make a very heavy set of fruit which fails to reach the desired market size unless thinned no matter what the growth of the tree may be. This is the result of the elaborated sugar and starch being too widely distributed so that each individual fruit gets but a portion of what it should receive. The amount of fruit set upon any tree is then a direct factor influencing size.

All fruits contain a very large percentage of water, and it is commonly noted that in dry seasons fruit is very much reduced in size even when liberal amounts of plant food have been supplied to the trees. The greater the number of fruits on any one tree under such conditions the smaller the individual specimens. The amount of foliage, the rate of vegetative development, the set of fruit upon the tree and the amount of moisture available, are then direct factors influencing the size of the fruit.

There are numerous indirect factors, however, which influence the above conditions and should not be overlooked. Lack of plant food, injury by fungi or caustic spray mixtures, may reduce the amount of foliage upon the tree and thus reduce the size of the fruit.

Factors which influence the rate of vegetative growth are espe cially numerous and may be listed as follows: Plant food, pruning, insect injuries, diseases, mechanical injuries and weather conditions. Excessive amounts of nitrogen may result in too much vegetative development and reduce the size of the fruit. Lack of sufficient nitrogen on the other hand may so reduce the foliage and vigor of the tree that the fruit will also be small. Pruning may affect the size of the fruit in several ways. Severe pruning of vigorous young trees during the dormant season may so encourage vegetative growth as to reduce the size of the fruit. The winter pruning of trees somewhat lacking in vigor may encourage a better development of foliage and increase the size of the fruit.

The removal of some of the branches during the dormant season may tend to increase the size of the fruit through the reduetion in the number of fruits the tree will have to support; although thinning of the fruit upon each branch is a necessary part of proper thinning, and it cannot be properly done by means of pruning alone. Summer pruning which checks excessive wood growth may result in increasing the size of the fruit. Borer in