TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 145 



their plantations will have the satisfaction at least of getting pay for 

 their labor, and the consciousness of having done no injury to their 

 neighbors by propagating destructive diseases and insects. 



DISCUSSION. 



Q. I would like to ask if any of you have tried Leader blackcap. It is 

 about like Ohio. 



Prof. Taft: I think Leader is valuable, but that Conrath is far prefer- 

 able. 



Mr. Morrill : My experience is limited, but on a thousand hills, stand- 

 ing on a trifle over half an acre, I raised some that I sold at ordinary 

 prices, some of them at extraordinary prices, and I certainly think 

 Leader is one of the hardiest, most vigorous things I ever saw. I don't 

 know but Conrath is up with it. Mr. Bird spoke favorably of Marlboro 

 red. When it first came out I paid |700 for 14,000 plants. I got 

 my money back, but in three years the foliage succumbed to our climate. 

 I had other plantations started at that time, but it would succumb every 

 time, inside of three years. I don't know of anything out of which I could 

 get the same amount of money that I can out of Marlboro if it would 

 withstand the climate. 



Mr. Harrison: I think it requires heavier soil and moister ground. On 

 lower ground, where it is rich, Marlboro produces tremendous crops, and 

 is healthy and hardy, but on sandy land, with us even, the heat of the 

 summer and the dryness of the atmosphere, destroys its fruiting powers. 



Mr, Morrill : How long does it last with you on the class of land you 

 recommend? 



Mr. Harrison : Seven or eight years. 



GREAT CROPS OF BLACKBERRIES AND HOW TO GROW 



THEM. 



BY MR. R. M. KELLOGG OF IONIA. 



For a commercial berry, there is a wide opening in blackberry culture. 

 There is scarcely a community even partially supplied, and, as generally 

 grown, the quality is so low that the consumption is the merest fraction 

 of what it would be if such methods were adopted as would secure the 

 highest development in flavor, size, and productiveness. When grown 

 as I shall hereafter point out, under reasonably favorable location, soil, 

 and climatic conditions, the crop should exceed three hundred bushels 

 per acre of a grade that would rank with the luscious strawberry and 

 even outdo that king of the small fruits as a money-maker. They come 

 at a season when there is no other berry in the market, and make the 

 connecting link between raspberries and grapes, so as to enable the 

 small-fruit grower to appear on the market every day throughout the 

 season. 



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