SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 261 



•done. Why, they raise good Wilsons yet, and yet I never grow 

 it to my satisfaction, but it's a grand starter if we only take ad- 

 vantage of its best condition. 



A dozen Wilson plants and a dozen plants of, say Bubach 's 

 No. 5 planted together and you have conditions for producing 

 seed that will be a mixture or cross of these two sorts, for you 

 see the Wilson will furnish the pollen and the Bubach the pistil, 

 and so the change in nature occurs, and possibly an overturning 

 of old systems of strawberry growing. I will give a little experi- 

 ence that may keep others from making the same mistake that I 

 made twenty or thirty years ago. I thought I had struck the 

 right track. We did not have the large Distillates like the Bu- 

 l>ach and a few others we have now, but had to content ourselves 

 with such sorts as Green Prolific, Russell's Prolific, Hovey, etc. 

 In trying my experiment, I reasoned that if I planted Wilson 

 and Green's Prolific (pistillate) together, I should be likely to 

 have a cross of the two sorts. So I planted ten or a dozen pair 

 of the different sorts, a pistillate and a staminate in isolated 

 spots, so that the pistillate should not be fertillized by pollen 

 from any other sort but the one I had chosen. But my experi- 

 ment was a failure, from the fact that some of the plants did not 

 bloom at all, while in other cases the two sorts did not bloom at 

 the same time. Then there were not enough pollen producers to 

 furnish pollen enough at the right time, so I did not get a single 

 good berry in all my little patches. You see I had not learned 

 the power of the little pollen brush. 



Experiment No. 2. A dozen years ago I planted a patch of 

 seedling strawberry plants, perhaps fifty different varieties. 

 When they came into bearing I could pick as many quarts and as 

 fine berries, that would average up in size of berry with a patch 

 of the same size and planted with the same number of sorts of 

 the same named varieties. So you can see that we need not lose 

 money in trying seedlings. 



One more experiment. In the fall of 1887 I planted a plant of 

 the Bubach No. 5, in my greenhouse, and at the same time I 

 planted a few plants of the Lacon. The next spring I caught 

 ripe pollen on the Lacon at the right time for the Bubach pistil. 

 The side of the Bubach, touched with the pollen, filled up and 

 ripened seed, from which I had the good fortune to raise four 

 plants, three of which are now showing fruit. One is pistillate 

 and one is staminate; the other has not shown its eye yet. The 

 point I wish to make by this experiment is, get your plants 

 under control, so that you can keep bees and insects from them, 

 that they be not fertilized by other pollen than you want used, 

 and you can get the cross you want. And thus I might go on 

 through the whole list of raspberries, blackberries, or any kind 

 of fruit the experimenter wishes to try. 



And now, dear friends, I surely believe this whole business is 



