440 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tain regions, offers some very promising varieties to experiment with, espe- 

 cially a large red sort occasionally met in the deep canons. The fruit is bright 

 red, a half-inch in diameter, acid, with little astringency, and produced in 

 very long racemes. We have seen them six inches or more in length. This 

 species grows in some of the coldest parts of the mountains, and would 

 doubtless prove perfectly hardy in all the eastern States. 



Our wild thorn apples are also worthy of attention, especially the variety 

 of the downy leaves (Crataegus tomentosa), for among these there are sorts 

 bearing fruit an inch long, and nearly as much in diameter, and of various 

 colors — red, scarlet, orange, and yellow spotted with white. The delicious 

 flavor and fragrance of some of the yellow sorts are not surpassed even by 

 those of a Newtown pippin apple. 



Improving Huckleberries. — Editor W. A. Stiles, of the Philadelphia 

 Press, is always full of delightful suggestions and this is one of them : 



How about improving the quality of the fruit? It has always been assum- 

 ed that it was essentially untamable, and could no more be cultivated than 

 quail could be reared in a hen house. There is a belief that the fine, wild 

 flavor — the aroma of the forest — would be cultivated out of the berry if the 

 plants were manured, hoed and plowed ; and perhaps this is more than a 

 superstition. There is a fragrance and a positive snappy flavor to the wild 

 strawberry that the great, juicy garden fruit, luscious though it is, has never 

 quite equaled. But certainly some huckleberries are better than others, and 

 it is not impossible to graft and propagate them. Mr. Dawson, of the 

 Arnold Arboretum, writes that he has no more trouble in raising all our 

 native varieties of huckleberries and blueberries from seed than he has in 

 raising other members of the heath family. Besides these he has raised 

 many foreign species, and he gives it as his opinion that the hybridizing of 

 these fruits would meet with paying success and make some desirable addi- 

 tions to our gardens, for he says they will grow in any soil. Here is another 

 field for our experiment stations. How many, many such opportunities 

 stand invitingly open for the explorer! Think of an acre or so of improved 

 varieties on bushes standing four to six feet high to make easy picking, and 

 loaded with berries as big as oxheart cherries, of a texture as rich and buttery 

 as that of a swamp huckleberry and a flavor equally delicious! 



The June Berry. — The American Garden remarks,, that while progress 

 in the improvement of some of our native fruits has been rapid and surpris- 

 ing, it seems strange that other kinds have been entirely ignored. Among 

 these is the June-berry, also known as Service-berry and Shadbush, a widely 

 distributed shrub or small tree. It is found almost everywhere throughout 

 the woods of the United States, and, bearing its pure white flowers in large 

 terminal racemes, early in spring when trees are yet bare of leaves, it forms 

 a most conspicuous as well as attractive object of the forests. The species 

 varies exceedingly, so much so that its many forms have been divided into 

 five distinct varieties: Botryapium, oblongifolia, rotundifolia, alnifolia, and 

 oligocarpa. 



The fruit, which ripens in June, is berry-like, roundish, purplish when 

 ripe, sweet or slightly sub-acid, and pleasant to the taste. With these good 

 qualities to start upon, there seems to be no reason why the June-berry 

 should not be as amenable to 'improvement as other members of the rose 

 family. 



