STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 217 



and generosity; but still as strangers, for after years of trial they may 

 fail you. 



But why go abroad when we have so much to try at home ? There are 

 in this country some one hundred and forty varieties of forest trees, and 

 in Europe but thirty-seven. We are said to have fifty-three species of 

 oak, seventeen of pine, fifteen of walnut, and eight of maple; and every 

 body knows, (whose taste is not vitiated, ) that the hard maple {Acer sac- 

 charinutn) is the handsomest tree the good Lord ever made. With such 

 a world of materials, is there the shadow of an apology for us to live with- 

 out ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers? Why, it's a sin. For a far 

 less crime Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead ! 



GEO. W. MINIER. 



Flower Dale Farm, Dec. 5, 1873. 



THE SNYDER BLACKBERRY— ITS HISTORY AND QUALITIES. 



It was found growing wild on Henry Snyder's farm, near La Porte, 

 Indiana, in 185 1. He planted it in his garden, where it has been grow- 

 ing and producing fine, luscious berries every year. About the year i860, 

 the La Porte Horticultural vSociety recommended it as the best berry 

 known to them, and named it the Snyder. I have fruited it tlie last three 

 years, with perfect success. While the last winter, under the same condi- 

 tions, the Kittatinny was killed to the ground, the Snyder produced a full 

 crop ; many of the terminal buds bloomed and produced fruit. We claim 

 for it the following qualities: Great hardiness and productiveness, (has 

 not winter-killed for twenty-two years), fine flavor, and no hard, sour 

 core, so common to other varieties ; strong, upright canes, with short, 

 stout laterals ; ripening its terminal buds perfectly ; sheds its leaves early 

 and clean ; the foliage is a dark, rich green ; the canes have only half as 

 many thorns as Kittatinny, and they are so nearly straight they do not 

 hold the clothes of the pickers ; the color of the berry is a glossy black, 

 and when it is black it is ripe. In size it is about the same diameter as 

 Kittatinny, but is one-eighth shorter, and ripens one week earlier. The 

 bloom is nearly all out at one time, consequently the harvest is short, the 

 berries being picked in from fifteen to twenty days. 



I. R. GASTON. 



Normal, III., Dec. 13th, 1873. 



AGGRESSIVE PARASITISM OF FUNGI. 



BY T. J. BURRILL, rROFESSOR OK HORTICULTURE IN THK ILLINOIS INDUSTRIAL 



UNIVERSITY. 



It long has been and still continues to be a disputed question among 

 horticulturists and botanists, regarding diseases of plants accompanied by 

 fungous growth, as to whether the latter is the cause or the result of the 

 disease. Like other questions, open to protracted debate, there are, 

 undoubtedly, two sides to this one. Cases are not all alike. Sometimes 

 disease and even death, attributed to this cause, take place before any 



