SUMMER MEETING. 45 



Mr. Ferry for our garden seed I noticed in his catalogue some straw- 

 berries mentioned. I sent for fifty plants called the Sharpless and 

 that is what I am cultivatiug today. I agree with the brother who 

 has just left the floor that the Sharpless is a shy bearer, but I believe 

 today bears the sweetest berry in cultivation, at least my folks down 

 at my house whenever they want to make a short cake or an extra 

 good pie for a visiting neighbor, they always hunt out the Sharpless 

 berries to make it, but it is a shy bearer and as I remarked in my 

 paper I believe the same berries bear different on different ground, 

 even under the same kind of treatment. Now, on my own place I find 

 that certain varieties of berries will do better on one soil than another 

 under the same kind of treatment exactly, and as Mr. James said the 

 very best way for a novice to do is to try to get plants near home, 

 where the soil is as nearly alike as possible. 



' As to my berry being a Sharpless 1 cannot tell whether it is or 

 not, but it is a berry I got 12 or 14 years ago from Ferry, which he 

 had listed as a Sharpless. 



By Mr. Hilton — Regarding the Sharpless, it is an easy matter to 

 know the Sharpless; it is different from almost any other berry I ever 

 saw. I have raised them now for about seven years ; mine came from 

 Jud (or Judson) Summit, Arkansas, and there were about a hundred 

 and twenty-five fruit-growers agreed that this was the Sharpless. 



It is an easy berry to tell from any other ; a shy bearer but a large 

 berry and a good fertilizer. I have grown them when they would be 

 almost from two to three inches in diameter ; when you get a perfect 

 berry, they are long and ripen first from the cap ; the point of the 

 berry will be the last to ripen, and sometimes they will rot before they 

 get ripe if it is a very wet season and if they lay on the ground ; some- 

 times the tip of the berry will rot before it ripens if they lay on the 

 ground, but this has not been the case with me, for we have such 

 stony ground they lay on the stone and don't rot. The Sharpless has 

 a very thick heavy foliage, not a very dark green, while the Bubach 

 has a great deal the same kind of foliage, but a darker green, and the 

 stem that holds the berry is pretty long and holds up pretty well ex- 

 cept when they get pretty heavy. I can tell the Sharpless wherever I 

 see it. I have seen men who call the Dunn the Sharpless. I went to 

 a man's place not long ago, and he was telling me that his Sharpless 

 did not do well, and I told him he didn't have the Sharpless, and he 

 said, "well, I bought them for the Sharpless, picked them for that and 

 sold them for that," and in going through the patch we found a few of 

 the berries; they were small and inferior, and I asked him if they had 



