STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 81 



prove new or interesting. New fruits ! How many horticulturists 

 have gone down into the bottonj of their pockets the past season, 

 after hearing some college-trained gentlemen, sent out by Eastern 

 firms, tell the bright side of his piece in regard to something new he 

 is offering, — to find in a few years hence, he is a victim of misplaced 

 confidence. 



In the wide range of pleasure, labor and cares connected with 

 pomology, nothing is more truly fascinating and highly interesting 

 to the lover of horticultural pursuits, than the production of new 

 varieties. It is a lottery with very many blanks and occasionally a 

 prize. In the anticipation of this prize, the one pomologist pushes 

 his experiments with an enobling pleasurable pride, finding lots of 

 disappointments and a vast field of unexhausted pleasure, not to be 

 found in other pursuits. Our long list of varieties which are so 

 bewildering to the beginner, were all new varieties once, new from 

 Nature's great store-house. They are not altogether natural forms, 

 but the artificial productions of culture, assisted by man's deter- 

 mined effort to improve; and, for all this tendency to improve, there 

 are apparently stronger tendencies to return to a natural or wild 

 state. There are more or less of popular errors prevailing in regard 

 to varieties, — one is, that when a good variety has originated from 

 seed and been introduced to the public, it may be continued forever. 



Judging from my own standpoint of experience and observation, 

 this can not be so. I think the facts will bear us out that all varie- 

 ties of fruits are of limited duration, depending on favorable or un- 

 favorable conditions of climate, soil, modes of propagating, and 

 innumerable other conditions of cultivation, plant food and sur- 

 roundings. 



New Fruits — To commence at the beginning, strawberries, the 

 first fruit to ripen in the early spring, and, to very many of us, 

 second to none in commercial importance. Of recent introductions, 

 fruited the second time, Bubach does not meet our expectation in 

 our end of the State. A large berry of medium quality, very soft, 

 poor shipper. Plants do not stand our midsummer sun, the yield is 

 light when compared with the kinds we grow. The same may be 

 said of the Jessie, except that it is a more vigorous grower and plant- 

 maker, in our soil, than the former. The Hoffman, from South Caro- 

 lina, a staminate variety, good fertilizer for Crescent and Warfield, 

 is a good, vigorous grower, makes lots of fruit of medium size and 

 fair shii)ping quality, is a good plant maker and promises well for 

 our latitude. The Burt Seedling, Itasca, Logan, Pearl and Cloud 

 Seedling we have not fruited enough to pass judgment. The Pearl, 

 however, is large and firm and promises well on one year's trial as a 

 shipping berry. Warfield No. 2 holds its position as the best market 

 strawberry in Southern Illinois, old or new, of good average size all 



