Joint Convention. 189 



he was not certain were pure. The greater part of the failures 

 of this kind occur where one neighbor gets his plants of another. 

 The first one starts his beds with "Wilsons and Green Prolifics, per- 

 haps, or with Wilsons and Colonel Cheney, or Crescent, or some 

 other variety that needs hermaphrodite or perfect flowering plants 

 to fertilize them, and it is the tendency of these staminates to run 

 out other kinds. They are rank growers, and in a few years will 

 take full possession of the beds. They are the strongest, nicest 

 looking plants in the whole bed, and the neighbor coming to get 

 plants to set, knowing nothing of their character, would be very 

 apt to select these worthless plants. Perhaps he can get no 

 other, they having run out the pistillates and hermaphrodite 

 plants. 



In speaking of the different kinds in his paper, he had indi- 

 cated the fertility and non-fertilizing varieties by the letters P. 

 and II. preceding the noun, so that they can be readily told. He 

 regarded the man who would set six acres of Green Prolifics with- 

 out knowing whether they were pistillates or staminates in tlie 

 right proportion, was a fit subject for the lunatic asylum. Green 

 Prolifics on light soil, if properly fertilized, is prolific. A citizen 

 of Janesville had a bed about ten rods long and one rod wide, 

 from which he picked three bushels a day, ever}' other day, right 

 through the best of the strawberry season. To secure proper 

 fertilization it is not necessary that the different kinds should be 

 mixed in the same bed. If put in beds or rows entirely distinct, 

 four, six or eight feet apart, the object will be gained. The wind 

 will carry the pollen, and bees will carry it farther and more 

 eft'ectuall}' then the wind. 



Mr. P. P. Spear, of Cedar Falls, Iowa, stated that where the 

 plants were allowed to run together it was diflicult to keep them 

 pure, for seedling plants would come up. A neglected patch in 

 his garden become almost entirely seedlings. He would like to 

 know if Mr. Kellogg thought ground on which a crop of potatoes 

 had been raised was in good condition for strawberries? Potatoes 

 take a good deal of potash from the soil, and strawberries need it 

 also. 



Mr. Kellogg, in reply, said if the ground was rich enough there 



