 Although many of his apple strains have been lost, those that survive include Pink Pearl, the best-known of his unusual series of some two dozen pink- and red-fleshed cultivars based on a European apple called Surprise (itself probably a descendant of "Malus niedzwetskyana").Some eastern and midwestern breeders, including Liberty Hyde Bailey and Charles Downing had already made some experiments with Surprise and been unhappy with the results, but Etter found that it worked much better as part of a west-coast breeding program.By 1928, Etter was far enough along in his breeding experiments to publish a preliminary report in the "Pacific Rural Press", where he wrote up two of his pink-fleshed cultivars, the Redflesh Winter Banana and a nameless seedling that, by its description, might have been Pink Pearl.