TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING. 95 



get dealers to refuse to sell the empty packages, but have not been success- 

 ful. I used to advocate and practice use of the full dry-measure quart, 

 but have had to succumb. I was beaten entirely out of my trade and had 

 to " cave." A man can't stand all alone on high moral plane in the Grand 

 Rapids fruit trade. I used to put my name on my packages until a Hol- 

 lander bought them second-hand and began selling trash under my name 

 and guaranty. 



President Lyon: I know a society that once resolved to use only full 

 dry-measure quarts and pecks; but the package-maker who tried the 

 experiment of supplying them with such found himself left with a great 

 part of the packages on hand. 



Mr. Kelly: I sold fifty bushels of black-caps to a dealer, by dry-meas- 

 ure, and found he repacked them all into wine measures. 



The last paper of the programme was the following, by Mr. R. M. 

 Kellogg of Ionia, a highly succeesful man in his specialty, upon 



IMPROVEMENT OP SMALL FRUIT PLANTS BY SELECTION. 



William Steele, whose farm adjoins mine, paid $6,600 for a two-year- 

 old heifer which had never given milk, nor was there any absolute cer- 

 tainty that she would make a successful breeder. It was not a " blind " 

 sale, for it occurred at the Chicago fat-stock show and there were present 

 a large number of the best stockmen in the country, and the bidding was 

 very spirited until Mr. Steele secured the prize at the price named. 



It might be profitable for purposes of comparison, to study the history 

 of this animal and learn the reason for attaching so much value to her. 

 She was the ideal type of one of the most illustrious families of the Short- 

 horns. Her ancestors on both sides, for many generations, had been uni- 

 formly the greatest prizetakers at the largest stock shows in this country 

 and Europe. There had not been a single break, and matings had been 

 made with the greatest care that even the slightest defects might be elimi- 

 nated from the offspring. Her registered pedigree on both sides went 

 back into the last century, so that all probability of reversion or taking on 

 the defects of remote ancestors had been removed. The offspring of these 

 famous animals were valued away up in the thousands, having been sold 

 as high as $42,50C, and at these fabulous figures were enormously 

 profitable. 



Their real sterling worth as breeders is not questioned. No successful 

 stockbreeder thinks of touching an animal until he thoroughly investigates 

 its pedigree, for it is conceded by all that the same care will produce with 

 the best animals a much larger percentage of clear profit than with common 

 scrub stock. 



Now, plants are male and female, and are governed by all the laws that 

 obtain in the breeding of animals. The organs of reproduction are as per- 

 fect in one as in the other, and are as much improved by selecting perfect 

 specimens for mating. Plants are subject to disease and transmit their 

 constitutional weakness with as much certainty as do animals, and mani- 

 fest as great tendency to revert and take on defects of ancestors. Cross- 

 fertilization and bud variation are the methods of producing new varieties. 



