•252 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTURAL 



soon smell the result of this delicate powerful remedy. Now we can 

 hardly furnish all the asparagus plants demanded. Acres' of it is 

 grown near our city, and lots of the fruit sent to Chicago. The're- 

 sult of a foreign emigration brought the asparagus into use, and it 

 will increase every year. In my childhood asparagus was only known 

 on the tables of the rich people and in the gardens of the preachers. 

 Nine years ago I saw three thousand acres of it near the two cities 

 of Brunswick and Wolfenbittel. in Germany, with an export of a 

 radius of three hundred miles, and a dozen gigantic canning facto- 

 ries. The protit is from three to five hundred dollars per acre. So 

 it will be in America. Was it not the same with the tomato here? 



Now we come to the real fruits. As long as our people had to 

 fight the wolf from the door, and before we had railroads and horti- 

 cultural societies, fruit culture was not much known. The apple and 

 the peach were the best known fruits, with only a few varieties. 

 Now we have not only the most and finest varieties in the world, 

 but send thousands of barrels to foreign nations over the ocean — the 

 peach in canned and evaporated states. Thirty and twenty years 

 ago we imported thousands of tons of dried fruits from Europe, now 

 we have become exporters, and believe me, the cargoes of plums and 

 prunes we import now will soon cease when our horticulturists have 

 found the remedy to do away with the curculio. 



Now let us take the strawberry and see what success it has made. ~ 

 Thirty years ago it was a novelty in our gardens, and only a child's 

 fruit. And where are we now? and as Billy Emerson once wisely 

 said: "Where will we be a thousand years ago?'" Hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of strawberries are grown and marketed in every 

 part of the United States, and instead of only the Early Scarlet, we 

 have hundreds of the finest varieties, and there will be no end to it. 



Take the once only-in-the-fence-corner-growing blackberry, and 

 see the thousands of acres of the best, sweetest, and largest varieties 

 grown all over our country. The progress is really wonderful. 



Take the raspberry in so many forms and varieties, and you will 

 have the same picture. 



The currant and the gooseberry culture is only in its first in- 

 fancy, but they will take the same road their sister berries before 

 mentioned have. 



Now we come to two great future fruits, the loveliest of all, the 

 pear and the cherry — both only babies. The cherry is a very easy 

 and most safe fruit to grow in any of our climates and soils, but we 

 need the varieties yet. The Early Richmond is at present leading, 

 but its seedlings or children will soon bring us a still better and safer 

 variety. Then we will have the Bugarow, a hard, sweet, crisp large 

 cherry, like in Germany and Russia, and new and lietter sorts will 

 be their offspring. It will become the favored fruit of our children, 

 and millions of bushels will be dried and preserved. 



