STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 299 



Martha, seen Martha, and tasted Martha, and this close personal inspec- 

 tion did not result in a very deep falling in love with her. The young 

 lady produced very grave suspicions in my mind, by the very strong 

 smell of vitisk about her person. That highly praised, fair complexion 

 of hers was found spotted and blotched with foul disease. Seriously I 

 have not seen a person in this State, who has grown and fruited this 

 grape, who does not denounce it in the strongest terms. But opinions 

 drawn from the quality of the fruit this season, can scarcely be just, for 

 the reason that all grapes of its family ( V. Labrusca)^ were \woxc foxy 

 than usual. The vine has not done well with me, and I have heard com- 

 plaints from others. As healthy and productive a vine as I have seen this 

 season, was a vine of that notoriously unhealthy thing, Allen! s Hybrid. 

 This was trained on a high arbor., ten feet high., and 1 was informed by 

 its owner, that this was not an exceptional year; that it had been healthy. 

 1 name this to induce persons to experiment more in the manner of grow- 

 ing vines. I also saw a vine covering at least five thousand square feet, 

 clambering over trees of many varieties, the vine bearing hundreds of 

 pounds of healthy fruit. 



Blackberries — A new^ thornless variety fruited on my grounds this 

 year, quite late; fruit, medium; plum shaped; of good quality and pro- 

 ductiveness; bush dwarf; a nice little thing. 



Needham's White and Crystal White; \Qry prett}' and very good. 

 Fruit small ; valuable as curiosities. 



Wilson's Early ; though I have had it old enough to bear some time, 

 it gave, this year, its first small crop of very large and veiy poor fruit. 



Plums — I have had for the first time, this year, fniit of the celebrated 

 Townsend, iSIincr, or Hinkley Plum, and find it a veiy much better fruit 

 than I had anticipated. There is no doubt in my mind but what this, 

 and others of the same family [Prunus chicasa)^ will eventually take a 

 high position among the standard fruits of the country. I had thought 

 that the Miner and the Wild Goose Plum of Kentucky and Tennessee, 

 were one and the same thing; but having last spring procured the gen- 

 uine Wild Goose from an undoubted source, there was found, when grow- 

 ing them side by side, a very great difference in the two trees. In a letter 

 of a late date, my friend, J. S. Downer, of Kentucky, says, in speaking 

 of the Wild Goose: "This plum, in no instance that has come to my 

 knowledge, has reproduced itself from seed, and the country is almost 

 full of spurious Wild Goose Plums. Many nurserymen and others are 

 now selling what they call Wild Goose plum trees on their own roots. 

 They are mistaken, I think. All such are only off-shoots from some seed- 

 lings of the Wild Goose Plum, and not the genuine sort.'' No man 

 has had a better chance to obtain the facts about the matter than the 

 veteran Downer, and there is no doubt but all the disparaging accounts 

 published of this fruit, have been caused by parties seeing fruit from spu- 

 rious trees. 



Apples — Of new sorts of these I will say nothing, leaving the task to 

 our worthy Secretary. 



