WEST MICHIGAN FRUITGROWERS" SOCIETY. 343 



failures. New varieties come in these ways, and not often tlirongh the 

 peddlers. 



Joseph Lannin: I never saw a good Moore's Early grape, yet it is 

 highly recommended by men of good standing. 



Mr. Morrill: At Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota, it is best of all. Here 

 comes in the variation by soil, climate, and cultivation. 



President Phillips: With me at Grand Haven, it is one of the best 

 of all. 



H. H. Hayes: If treated right, there is as much money in Moore's 

 Early as in Niagara. 



N. W. Lewis: It seems to me the best way to establish the value of a 

 new sort is to send it to the experiment stations and test it in various soils 

 and under different conditions and treatment. 



President Phillips: At Grand Haven and thence northward, Moore's 

 Early is second choice of black grapes for profit and quality. Last year 

 mine matured and went to market in good shape, three tons to the acre, 

 when Concords failed. It ripens all at once and goes to market ten days 

 before Concord. 



Prof. L. H. Bailey: Do not trust too much to reports from experiment 

 stations, for the conductors are not always skilled experts in all points. 

 Should I grow successfully one hundred sorts of peach at Lansing, I 

 would not give a fig for the value of any of them at the lake shore before 

 testing them there. Yet it is best to have them sent to stations, for some 

 of the results may be valuable. Some stations make adverse reports, but 

 such never appear in the catalogaies of dealers. You must beware also of 

 recommendations. They often are not given for the special use made of 

 them, and often are garbled and distorted entirely out of their original 

 meaning. Usually they are honestly made but are misapplied. 



O. Beebe: I have had Moore's Early grape in cultivation thirteen or 

 fourteen years, and am inclined to the opinion of Mr. Lannin. I tried it 

 first in Kalamazoo county and then here, each time on good soil. Its 

 c|uality is third-rate with me. The clusters are small, though the berries 

 are fair enough in size. 



H. Dale Adams recalled the origin of the Bidwell strawberry, saying it 

 was the result of careful breeding by B. Hathaway of Little Prairie Bonde, 

 a highly conscientious man and one who desires to put forth only berries 

 of honest merit. He placed in Mr. Adams' hands plants of three new 

 seedings, Pomona, Michigan, and one which was afterward known as the 

 Bidwell. By accident the plants of the latter were lost, and I next heard 

 of it near South Haven, under the name of Centennial, fifteen years after- 

 ward. I examined it (it was large and fine) and felt certain it was the 

 berry I had possessed, but Mr. Lyon differed with me and thought it a 

 seedling originated by Mr. Bidwell, and it was so named; but I found, by 

 correspondence with Mr. Hathaway, that it really was the seedling he had 

 sent me years before. 

 ■ A. S. Dyckman: Probably you all know who introduced the Bidwell — 

 E. P. Boe — and how he advertised it in Scribner's Magazine. He sup- 

 posed he had bought all there was of it, but one man at Kalamazoo had 

 two little rows and got $200 for them. Mr. Eoe probably made $10,000 

 from it, and he kept selling long after it had proved worthless here. 



T. T. Lyon: Mr. Adams is mainly correct in his remarks, yet the facts 

 were that Bidwell, years before they were shown here, got ten each of ten 

 seedlings of Mr. Hathaway. This particular berry was first shown at 



