144 "Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



portion to their size as the Wilson, that had stood a year. I might 

 speak of other varieties, but I wanted to speak of the condition of 

 the soil. The Arena, which we have almost discarded, is on some 

 kinds of soil a good berry, but on a sandy soil it is a complete 

 failure. These conditions we cannot overlook. 



Mr. A. G. Tuttle, of Baraboo — I have had some experience with 

 the Crescent Seedling. I planted it a year ago, and for vigor and 

 hardiness I have seen nothing on the list of strawberries which I 

 think compares with it. Plants that were entirely uncovered last 

 winter, were as bright and green in the spring as they were in the 

 fall, while the Wilsons were worse destroyed last spring than I ever 

 knew them. I fruited the Crescent last spring, and could not see 

 but what it bore as heavy a crop as the Wilson. Of course Hhad 

 but few plants. The most of the plants I transplanted. They were 

 standing only a short distance from the Wilson, and I noticed, after 

 a frost had occurred, the blossoms that were open upon the Wilson, 

 after a careful examination, seemed to be about nine-tenths of them 

 destroyed; while on these only about one-tenth; the frost had an 

 entirely different effect upon the blossoms. The plant is very vig- 

 orous, and I think my friend Smith has not had a very good chance 

 to try the Crescent Seedling if he set his plants last spring. I saw 

 the original bed of Crescent Seedling after it had been fruited three 

 years. The man who originated the berry, Mr. Parmalea, is not in 

 the fruit business. He propagated it for his own amusement and 

 not for sale, and never has sent out a plant to my knowledge. The 

 grower, Mr. H. H. Smith, who lives not far from Mr. Parmalee, took 

 up the plant, I think he told me, in 1871 or 1872. When I was 

 there, Mr. Parmalee told me that he had a new seedling strawberry 

 that he thought very much of. He had fruited it one season, and 

 if it proved to be what it promised, he thought it was going to be 

 ahead of anything in the strawberry line. He said Mr. H. H. Smith 

 had taken and fruited it also, and he, too, thought very much of it, 

 and was growing it and sending it out. I do not think Mr. Parmalee 

 has ever sent out any plants at all. 



The reason he called my attention to the bed was, that as I was 

 reading in his house the description Mr. Smith gave of the plant, 

 that it would keep down all the grass and weeds, so that after the 

 first year there would be no care required, and that it would go on 

 and fruit year after year; I told Mr. Parmalee I thought that was 



