358 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



larger, and sweeter kinds will show on a chemical analysis as great a proportion 

 of sugar as this old Wilson. The sweet or sour taste in fruits does not depend 

 so much on the amount of sugar they contain as on their proportion of sugar 

 to acid. The Clinton grape, so higlily detested by many for its extreme acridity 

 on its first coloring, shows on analysis when ripe, a greater per cent of sugar 

 than most other popular varieties. The sugars and acids of fruit consist of the 

 same elements — carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. These sugars and acids being 

 of the same chemical elements, the arch chemist, nature, in the process of 

 ripening fruits in her private laboratory, readily changes a portion of theiracid 

 to sugar, so that the process of ripening is in the perfection of the seeds for the 

 perpetuation of the plant and adjusting its ingredients to the wants of man and 

 the lower animals — literally changing the acid to sugar. And so we never get 

 a perfect fruit till it is perfectly ripe, and that's what's the matter with the 

 "Wilson. It has in my opinion more of the real elements of fruit than any of 

 the larger kinds, the increased size of the latter being made up of an increased 

 quantity of water alone. 



Growers for the market know that it is always marketed before it is fully 

 colored, and when they partake of it themselves, they always select the ripe 

 ones. I am well aware that many palates are better suited with these large, 

 diluted berries, but I consider that an evidence of a weak stomach, for I have 

 always noticed that as a rule the healthiest persons have the least taste for 

 sweets. I was one of the first to introduce this berry into my neighborhood, 

 and I have ever since watched it and such of its rivals as have come within my 

 reach, and I believe at this late day that there has been no new fruit; of any kind 

 introduced into the Northern States tliat is as great an improvement over pre- 

 existing kinds as this very Wilson strawberry. While it bears with patience and 

 fortitude eyery kind of abuse and neglect, it readily responds to judicious cul- 

 ture even on our light and almost blowing sands, without manure. I have even 

 come to the conclusion that for this berry on our light soil the application of 

 any barn yard manure does not compensate for the grass and weeds it introduces, 

 but that a frequent stirring of one or two inches of the surface at a proper time 

 gives triple compensation. 



CHAMPION AND WINDSOR CHIEF. 



President T. T. Lyon says the Windsor Chief, which was shown at our June 

 meeting two years since, seems on all hands to have won tlie rejnitation of 

 being the Champion and only the Champion. It was supposed that such a 

 charge, so frequently reiterated, would doubtless win from its alleged originator 

 a defense or at least an explanation, but as nothing of this kind seems to have 

 appeared, the result must naturally be to increase the suspicion that such 

 defense is impossible — in other Avords that the AVindsor Chief is a myth. 



Granville Cowing, of AEuncie, Indiana, says: I iiave fruited them for two 

 seasons within four feet of each other, and have never been able to detect the 

 slightest difference in any respect between them. Eight or nine years ago I 

 received plants of Champion irom Mr. John Saul, of Washington, D. C, sev- 

 eral years before Windsor Chief was heard of. Windsor Chief was first gen- 

 erally presented to the public by Samuel Miller, ol Blnffton, Mo., the originator 

 of Capt. Jack, and an intelligent fruit grower, who was much impressed by its 

 merits, but who, I believe, at that time, had neither seen nor fruited Cham- 



