No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 118 



that. We might in that way select a whole lot of apples and learn 

 them as true to name. There is a great deficiency in our information 

 along that line, and there are very few persons who can act as a com- 

 petent committee and judge the different varieties that are exhibited 

 at our fairs. There are very few that know even our ordinary ap- 

 ples, which we ought to know, 



I want to ask my friend Mr. Northup to uame this apple, and Dr. 

 Funk has brought along a few apples and laid them down there. 



The CHAIRMAN: Will you please tell us why your Northern 

 Spys are not like those? 



MR. HERR: They are grown in a little different season, a little 

 different climate. Ours are of a deeper color, not perhaps quite so 

 striped but deeper in color. 



DR. FUNK: (Referring to his exhibit of apples). Those are the 

 Summer Rambo. The red apple you had in your hand is the apple 

 about which so much has been said. In regard to the Black Ben 

 Davis, the true name is the Regan. You know that there was a 

 controversy in regard to it, some claiming it to be distinct from the 

 Gano apple. Prof. Van Deman decided that there was a distinction. 

 If there is, there is a distinction that would take an expert to dis- 

 tinguish, both in tree growth and in the general appearance of the 

 fruit, in the flavor and everything else. I have a tree and I will 

 defy any man living to pick out one from the other — the Gano and 

 the Black Ben Davis. I obtained these from Benj. Wheeler, in 

 charge of the experiment station in Arkansas; that is, the Black Ben 

 Davis or the Regan. 



MR. BEARDSLEE: Mr. Chairman, I regret very much that I did 

 not bring along a potato that I saw yesterday morning being un- 

 loaded at our nearest station from one of my neighbor's farms. It 

 weighed just even three pounds; another one weighed just two 

 pounds and a half. The potatoes were all large, showing that they 

 were in a very good potato district. I have attended institutes 

 where there has been a very fine exhibit of potatoes, vegetables, 

 fruit and corn — remarkably fine, down in the southern portion of 

 the State, and the effect was excellent, stimulating and elevating. 

 I believe that if it were made a universal rule at these agricultural 

 meetings to present such exhibits, it would be wholesome, 



MR. RODGERS: While these large potatoes are interesting as 

 exhibits, they could not be sold; no dealer would buy them because 

 they are too large; they have to sell them by the peck and half -peck 

 and they cannot measure them out. 



MR, HERR: I do not mean that the fine specimens of each variety 

 be brought, but that the specimens be really fair, and true to name, 

 as an object lesson and study^ not a disappointing study, I do not 

 believe in the modern way of selling fruit trees, exhibiting a picture, 



