116 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



and Forest Rose, were superb in a few localities but which failed utterly, af- 

 ter wide dissemination, to maintain their fame. For a long time the success 

 or failure of the vaunted kinds introduced seemed but a question of chance. 

 I am now satisfied that in the foregoing paragraphs I have suggested the 

 causes of failure and made it clear that our best success in this country, 

 especially at the South, will be found in developing on hardy native Virginian 

 species. Nine-tenths of the new kinds set out are chance seedlings, or else 

 are the outcome of long generations of cultivated varieties in which Chilensis 

 strain abounds. 



The Southern fruit grower should seek to develop a class of varieties 

 suited to his climate, and, to a certain extent, this has been done, as for in- 

 stance in Neunan's Prolific or the Charleston Seedling. The trouble, how- 

 ever, with this berry is, that it is only fit to ship, not to eat, unless dead ripe 

 on the vines. If I were growing strawberries in the South I would order 

 only such varieties as had shown in their foliage the highest degree of en- 

 durance of summer heat, as for example, the Bidwell, Sharpless (staminate), 

 and the Golden Defiance, and Champion (pistillate). Here are five male and 

 female varieties from which new kinds could be obtained, and they might be 

 crossed with vigorous and productive plants growing wild in the vicinity. 

 Thus in time there would be a class of strawberries that had originated in 

 Southern soil and under Southern skies. I have never seen a plant that 

 maintained its foliage so perfectly from j^ear to year, until dying of old 

 age, as the Bidwell. It is also enormously productive, setting more fruit in 

 many localities, it is said, than it can mature. Admitting this fault fully, yet 

 it has been well proved that the Bidwell possesses superb qualities in the 

 hardness of its foliage and its tendency to stool out into enormous fruit- 

 crowns. It therefore should become the sire of new varieties in which the 

 one weakness of the parent might be breeded ou*^. My advice to South- 

 ern growers would be to buy charily of kinds heralded at the North, to test 

 them and discover through adequate trial how far they are suited to the re- 

 gion, then propagate those most vigorous and productive and make tiiena 

 the parents of new varieties. 



To a very great degree the same principles that we have already consid- 

 ered apply to the red raspberry. Until recently the kinds chiefly cultivated 

 at the North were imported from Europe, and, as a rule, they exceed in ex- 

 cellence our native varieties. Many seedlings have also been introduced but 

 they were of foreign parentage and possessed the same lack of adaptation to 

 even the southern part of the Middle States, and, with few exceptions, re- 

 quired covering everywhere. They well repay it where they can be grown. 

 We are learning, however, that our native raspberries well deserve cultiva- 

 tion, and specimens found growing wild have been propagated to very great 

 advantage. As, for example, the Turner or Southern Thornless (they are 

 identical), the Brandywine and others. In the Southern woods and fields may 

 be found other prizes, and from the seeds of these new and still better kinds 

 might be obtained. There is no use of trying to raise foreign blooded rasp- 



