4t3 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



enough quality to induce free purchase at a fair price. Sometimes, 

 even when the quaHty is not strictly ideal, size, beauty, abundance and 

 consequent cheapness combine to make a given variety the favorite, 

 both with producer and consumer. •* A beet that will grow is better 

 than a cedar of Lebanon that won't grow ! " 



There seems to be, some way, a preconceived notion that product- 

 iveness and high quality never go together, and so productiveness in any 

 new variety seems to prejudice many at the first against its quality. 

 For example, I can distinctly remember when the Peachblow, and later, 

 the Rose potato, the Baldwin, Ben Davis, Rome Beauty and King apple, 

 the Fultz and Clawson wheat, the Wilson strawberry and the Concord 

 grape were each pronounced by connoiseurs to be coarse in quality and 

 unfit for general use. But they would produce, and gradually consum- 

 ers, even the critical, found that they were really of good, palatable and 

 inviting quality, and so these and a few other more recent varieties 

 have come to be the chief commercial ones of their kind in their season. 

 For example, I think it not an over estimate to say that for the last 

 fifteen years more pounds of the Concord grape (or of the Concord type) 

 have been sold in the markets of the United States than of all other 

 kinds put together, aside from foreign and California grapes. 



The Worden, however, is the grape on which I am most inclined to 

 grow enthusiastic. I believe it and the Concord are to be the grapes 

 for the million in this latitude, and that the Worden is to lead when it 

 becomes as well known as the Concord. The berries are larger, the 

 clusters heavier and as compact, the color and bloom fully equal, while 

 the vines seem just about as hardy and productive. But the grape itself 

 seems to me sweeter, richer and more delicate in flavor — indeed, better 

 every way as a table grape than the Concord ; and it is at least a full 

 week earlier, and hangs as well on the vines. Almost its only defect is 

 one that I notice this year for the first time to any marked extent, and 

 which I mention in these columns so as to inquire whether it is really a 

 fault of the grape or only of this particular season. It is this, that 

 when fully ripe, or a little past ripe, the stems, though tough and strong 

 where they join the vines, are brittle further out, so that the clusters are 

 liable to break into sections if jarred in picking or handling. The 

 grapes themselves do not break off singly ; the branches and even the 

 main stem break, each part retaining its grapes. I^ave others in other 

 localities and latitudes noticed this fault ? 



I should be glad also of reports and opinions as to the hardiness, 

 productiveness, flavor, size and market chances and qualities as com- 

 pared with the Concord. It seems to me that here, as soon as it is well 



