STATE HOBTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 95 



to be selected by the ^rowers, this winter for their use. By usiug 

 these ears and shipping by freight instead of frnit train, the freight 

 to Minneapolis will be less than ten cents per twenty-four quart 

 crates. This includes cost of ice. Berries are cooled down to 50 

 degrees, before putting into cars, in a cooler owned by the Associa- 

 tion which has a capacity of two cars, and is so arranged that in 

 loading or receiving a car load the temperature will not rise more 

 than two degrees. 



While peaches, grapes and strawberries take the lead at Villa 

 Ridge, vegetables seem to be the principal crop at Cobden, the 

 quantity of tomatoes, sweet potatoes, pieplant and other vegetables 

 grown here is enormous, and when you take into consideration the 

 difficulty of getting manure, which all comes from St. Louis and 

 Chicago, you are still more surprised; but when you are told that 

 they are content to pay 812 per car, freight, on bulky barnyard 

 manure, then haul from one to four miles over the worst kind of 

 roads, instead of using artificial fertilizers, you will have another 

 surprise. The sweet potato crop is the largest ever gathered, the 

 acreage was double any previous year, and the yield per acre as 

 large or larger. Over 200,000 bushels are stored at this point await- 

 ing shipment. Thirteen additional storage houses were built the 

 past season, making forty in all, besides a number of cellars that 

 have been fitted for this purpose. 



The strawberry crop for Southern Illinois for the season of '89 

 promises to be about 60 per cent, of what it was in '86, the last and 

 full crop. The acreage planted last spring was small, but the 

 plantations, owing to the wet fall, never were in finer condition. 

 The good prices obtained for berries for the last two years have so 

 encouraged growers that the planting next spring will be so exces- 

 sive that the prices obtained for them, in '90, is bound to be below 

 the cost of production. 



In the neighborhood of Centralia, the Warfield will largely 

 take the place of the Crescent,— it is a better grower, better shipper 

 and far superior in quality. 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Your committee beg leave to report as follows: 

 We are well pleased with the establishment and present manage- 

 ment of the station at Champaign, so far as we have become acqainted 

 with the same. 



There is much work in the matter of experiments that can be 

 done at Champaign, that will benefit the whole State, and to such 

 work it should confine itself at present. But there are other lines of 

 experiment that are of more local application, and if undertaken at 

 Champaign, will be of benefit for that locality or section only. 



