584 Bulletin 79. 



the many kinds of fruits and other products with which the 

 experimenter is supposed to deal. It is said that one can judge 

 from the looks and behavior of a variety if it will be a good ship- 

 per, but I must remind my reader that this short-cut method of 

 arriving at conclusions is one reason why so many disappointing 

 varieties are introduced. And besides this, the variety may 

 behave differently in diflferent seasons, and in every various soil 

 and treatment. The emphatic impression of this fact upon my 

 mind was the only good result which came out of my first test of 

 strawberries. Over forty varieties were grown, and I made the 

 most conscientious attempt not only to make notes upon produc- 

 tiveness and behavior, but to personally eat every kind. I ate 

 across the patch north and south, east and west, backwards and 

 forwards. The results of the whole test were duly published ; 

 whereupon a neighbor three miles away said it might all be very 

 well, but the varieties did not behave that way with him ! 



What the farmer wants to know is the value of the variety upon 

 his place, not upon the experiment station farm, and be is the 

 only person who can find it out. To thoroughly test a variety is 

 to introduce it. When it is once introduced, the general con- 

 census of opinion of men who actually grow it for the purposes 

 for which it is desired, forms the best and the only criterion of its 

 value. Even then, there may be farms, as every horticulturist 

 knows, upon which a variety that is generally condemned ma}' 

 succeed ; and the variety is then not a failure. Now, the dis- 

 covering of this concensus of opinion, and publishing it, is just 

 the work which the experiment station can perform when it de- 

 sires to spread information of varieties. The standard of actual 

 sales in commercial plantations is the only correct one for market 

 fruits and this is to be had only from farmers themselves. A 

 series of tabulated reports, from growers who are capable judges 

 of particular fruits, is capable of giving reliable information of 

 varieties. If, in connection with such reports, the experimenter 

 can add his own experience, very much will be gained ; and he 

 often has the great advantage of receiving varieties before they 

 are put upon the general market And the greater use he makes 

 of the reports of others, the more valuable does his own variety 

 patch become as a means of study and comparison. 



