REPORTS OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. 29? 



persimmon, and unfitted for this latitude ; also a Japanese peach, represented to 

 keep all winter. 



There is another class who are perfectly irresponsible. They send out cata- 

 logues from responsible nurseries, but they get their trees from nurseries having 

 inferior stock on hand, which they purchase cheap. One of these nurseries 

 is located at Saugerties, N. Y. He made an order with one agent amounting 

 to $160, paying $20 in advance. This was in the fall, and hearing nothing of 

 the agent or the trees, he wrote a little before he wanted the trees, but could 

 get no answer until he baited the agent with a prospect that he had more 

 money to spend. Upon inquiry, he found that this man had no nursery of 

 his own, was poor, and perfectly irresponsible. He was induced to deal with 

 him from seeing his correspondence in the Detroit Commercial Advertiser, in 

 which he had some fine articles on the strawberry ; but he pocketed the loss of 

 his $20 rather than take any farther risks on him. Another man, whom he 

 named, lived in New Jersey, and his standing was very doubtful. 



It had seemed to him that protection might be obtained if a list of dealers 

 and agents who had been proved to be reliable were kept by the society for 

 reference. Even nurseries themselves were not always reliable. In one order 

 from a nursery he got nearly 400 Lombard plums where he should have had 

 but 86. 



Prof. Beal referred to a letter he had received from Jackson, saying that 

 agents were offering pear trees represented to be grafted on imported stocks, 

 and blight-proof. Nurserymen often grafted on imported stocks, but they 

 were generally sometime in the country before they were grafted or budded, 

 and were no more blight-proof than any other. They were also offering 

 "weevil-proof" plums, Russian apples, very superior, and strawberries which 

 produced no runners. A horticultural society, similar to this, had been started 

 in Jackson, and he had written to the gentlemen to support it. It was the 

 best kind of insurance to its members against frauds, for dishonest agents and 

 nurserymen rarely troubled members of these societies. At the Agricultural 

 College they had been beaten by some of the best nurserymen. They had 

 ordered some choice trees which were just coming into bearing, and they are 

 not all proving to be what they were bought for. Sometimes these mistakes 

 occurred through incompetent employes. If we could get some good men at 

 home to raise these things, so far as the climate will permit, it will be better to 

 patronize them. It was almost impossible, most of the time, to propagate pear 

 and apple trees here. He would as soon have apple trees two years old, grown 

 in Michigan, on good clay land, as any, because the last two seasons have 

 been mild, but those grown in previous seasons he would not want, because the 

 seasons were not favorable to a healthy growth. 



Mr. Jones had a similar experience with strawberries. On his first orders 

 but few were true to name. 



The president thought it very easy to get mixed on small plants. 



Mr. Baker had made up his mind that the best way was to buy his small 

 fruits of such men as Mr. Jones. His large fruits he had purchased, as far as 

 possible, from Mr. Parks. 



Messrs. Stebbins and Johnson related similar experiences in spurious fruits. 



PRESERVING GRAPES. 



Mr. Baker asked for the best methods of preserving grapes fresh during the 

 winter. He had tried the method previously explained by Mr. Brown, but 

 without full success. 



