314 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jail., 



certain failure, where a different selection might be quite satis- 

 factory. 



An amateur garden should have the best management, fertiliza- 

 tion, and culture; should embrace in varieties a selection of well- 

 known, favorite kinds; and novelties should be introduced with 

 about the same discretion as you would introduce a stranger into 

 your family, viz. : to be sure of his probable good standing before 

 a welcome. 



A little more risk may be allowed in small fruits than in trees 

 which require long years of growth before fruitage. Still, planters 

 may reasonably exei'cise good discretion even here. The high 

 qualities of new varieties are usually exaggerated; they nearly 

 always have had extra care and culture, and as they reach com- 

 mon treatment prove to be less extraordinary. Thus, we hear of 

 the Jersey Queen Strawberry reaching a weight of — ounces. 

 Well, do not for one moment suppose that in a matted row, on 

 poor soil, and with poor culture, you are going to get any such 

 enormous fruit. We read of raspberries which reach three- 

 quarters of an inch in diameter, and we have had them; hut this 

 is the exception, not the general size; therefore it is safe not to 

 expect too much, even of a good variety. 



He who has an inquiring mind, and will weigh well the merits 

 and demerits of new varieties, may soon learn so as not to be very 

 badly deceived in his selection of varieties for an amateur garden. 



WHAT OUK STATE HAS DONE, AND WHAT IT MAY DO IN ORIGINATING 



NEW VARIETIES OF FRUIT. 



Our fathers, mothers, and sisters have had no lack of success 

 in producing a large number of new varieties of fruit which have 

 been so good as to be in the fruit books of Downing, Thomas, 

 Warder, and other eminent pomologists. 



More than one hundred varieties of fruits of merit have been 

 described as of Connecticut origin, not less than twenty in the city 

 of Elms, and the names of Edwards, Ives, Dickerman, Howell, 

 Parmelee, and several others, will long be remembered, "their 

 works (and their fruits) following them." 



Hardly a town in the State has failed to produce some choice 

 variety of fruit. On entering a hall in Suffield, to witness a hor- 

 ticultural exhibition in 1881, the most prominent dish was a 



