212 3Iississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



counties were covered with strawberrj-^ patches. This fruit was marketed in 

 small hand-baskets, holdintr about half a pint, which jvere strung on pieces of 

 curd and thus '■ toted " to market; the fruit having the " hulls" removed in all 

 cases before being placed in the baskets. Think of the labor that would be 

 required to remove the hulls from all the berries grown by extensive culti- 

 vators of the present day; also of the injury to the fruit that such an opera- 

 tion would entail. The berries grown at that early time were so small, and 

 the manner of marketing so primitive, the culture of the fruit spread slowly, 

 especially as all were taught to select the poorest and most sandy soil for the 

 crop. You who grow the large, beautiful fruit of to-day, select the deepest, 

 richest soil and fertilize liberally at that; at least all growers do at the East. 

 The introduction of Hovey's Seedling did more to advance the cultivation 

 of the strawberry than any variety that appeared prior to the advent of 

 that grand old sort — the Wilson. True this berry, like many grand men and 

 women, who have left the earth better than they found it, possessed an excess 

 of t;irtne.ss, but behold what it has done. Not only has it given those at the 

 North strawberries, but it has given strawberries to everybody, flooding the 

 entire Atlantic coast with a crimson tide in strawberry time. Commencing 

 beneath the .sunny skies of Florida, where balmy breezes blow, and increas- 

 ing in magnitude as the glorious wave advances northward, until it culmi- 

 nates in the vast fields of Virginia and Maryland, where plantations of hun- 

 dreds of acres are to be found, then dashing against the mountains of the 

 Blue Kidge and the Alleghanies, breaks and spreads in all directions, even to 

 tlie bleak hills of Nova S'otia. Next in importance, as well as in season, is 

 the 



RASPBERRY. 



To my favorite State I must again give credit for not only being the pioneer, 

 but for much of the progress that has been made in the culture of this deli- 

 cious fruit. I find it difficult to speak of the raspberry, as the various classes 

 are so widely dillerent in essential clnracteristics, adaptibility to soil, etc. 

 Were the "cap" varieties designated by their proper term, " Thimbleber- 

 ries," my task would be much simplified. Cap raspberries, although grown 

 in large quantities from Maine southward from the time of the introduction 

 (jf the venerable Duolittle or improved Black Cap, have lost much of their 

 P<»pularity along tin- Atlantic coast in more modern times; the red varieties, 

 l)y rea.son of their yieliling greater proli s for market and being preferred 

 in most caises for garden culture, supplanting them, except at the South, 

 whore the caps succeed best. The old time prestige of the caps has, however, 

 Iwcu in a measure regained since the advent of the Gregg, especially since 

 ovap<.ratcd fruit h:u< proved so ])rofitable. Large quantities of Gregg, Alden, 

 S )uh<'gan, Tyler and other varieties suitable for drying are now being planted. 



UKI) VARIKTIES. 



I'rior to the inlr.iduction of the rhiladdphia, the culture of red ra.spber- 

 ries wna confined to the gardens, as foreign varieties only were grown. This, 



