Addresses — Strawberries. 141 



of a hurry to invest in it, for fear it will only add another to the 

 list of your disappointments. 



Scarcely a year passes that I do not destroy a number of new 

 varieties, root and branch, being fully as anxious to get rid of the 

 last vestige of them, as I was in the first place to try them. I de- 

 stroyed three or four new kinds last summer, and have now some 

 half a dozen others that will share the same fate next summer, un- 

 less they do better than they have yet done. It may be asked, 

 what do you call doing well, and what would satisfy you in a new 

 variety? In reply, I say that I will not cultivate a berry that 

 yields less than 200 bushels per acre, when it has a fair chance to 

 do well. We surely do not want a variety with fewer good quali- 

 ties than the Wilson. My view is, that we need something about 

 one week, or if possible, more than that, earlier than the Wilson, 

 and another variety a little later, or one to continue in bearing 

 until we get fairly into the raspberry season. 



If any person will send me one dozen plants each, of such varie- 

 ties, possessing all the good qualities of the Wilson, in the same 

 degree as the Wilson, even if they are no better in any other re- 

 spect except being earlier and later, I will cheerfully bind myself 

 to pay .$100 for the two dozen plants, after they have proved a suc- 

 cess, by a thorough and systematic trial upon my grounds. But, 

 gentlemen, until I see at least reasonable evidence of some im- 

 provement over the Wilson, I propose hereafter to go a little slower 

 on new varieties than I have done heretofore. To say that I have 

 spent hundreds of dollars, in time and money, upon new varieties, 

 is to speak very far within the actual truth; and when I say, that 

 with all the care and attention that I could bestow upon them, I 

 have never made one dollar from them, this is also the truth. 

 Upon the other hand, I have been very successful with the Wilson 

 from the first to the present, and that almost without an exception. 

 This being the case, I have no hesitation in saying to the beginner 

 and to the amateur cultivator, take the Wilson and treat it well, and 

 you will almost certainly reap a good reward for your labor. But 

 touch the new varieties as a burned child touches fire, very care- 

 fully, until some expert or professional grower in your vicinity has 

 demonstrated that it is at least not entirely worthless. 



Strawberries. — Geo. J. Kellogg — I would like to ask Mr. 

 Smith if he ever raised the Green Prolific by the quantity? 



