56 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



prophecy, for we now have ample evidenee of the worth of this native 

 cherry. As most of you are aware, Professor Hansen of the Agricultural 

 College of South Dakota has produced many hybrids of the sand cherry 

 with other related fruits with most promising results. He has shown 

 that in this wild cherry of our plains we have a fruit that is worthy of 

 our best care and cultivation. 



But we do not need to go to South Dakota in order to learn of the 

 value of the sand cherry. Professor M. R. Gilmore of Bethany, three 

 miles east of Lincoln, has grown this fruit for a number of years. At 

 my request he made the following statement under date of December 14, 

 1911: "I submit these notes from the observations I have made on the 

 behavior of some native fruits of Nebraska which I have taken from their 

 wild state and planted in my garden. I have a clump of bushes of the 

 sand cherry (Prunus besseyi) which I brought from a sand ridge in the 

 northwest part of Douglas county near Valley and planted at Bethany in 

 Lancaster county. They flourish and have borne fruit very abundantly 

 every year since they were set. They are fully resistant to drought, late 

 frost, and inimical organisms, whether insects or parasitic plants. They 

 seem to be wholly triumphant over any adverse conditions pertinent to 

 this region. With me they have responded to the slightest degree of 

 cultivation by an increase in their already abundant fruit-bearing. My 

 clump of about three by six feet in area yielded last summer three gal- 

 lons or more of cherries, which in size approximate ordinary Early Rich- 

 mond cherries." 



I may add to this testimony the statement that fi'om a quantity of 

 the cherries brought last summer from Professor Gilmore's plantation a 

 dozen or so of cherry pies were made, and these were tested by the Botan- 

 ical Seminar of the University of Nebraska, and pronounced to be equal 

 to those made from ordinary orchard cherries. 



Buffalo Berry (Shepherdia argentea). 



For an acid fruit the buffalo berry is worthy of cultivation. It is 

 hardy and apparently free from the usival enemies of so many of our 

 shrubby fruits. It might be used as a substitute for the cranberry. 



Gooseberries (Ribes sp.). 



We have wild gooseberries in almost every part of the state, which 

 in their wild condition are quite edible, and which under cultivation 

 should give us something to replace our old kinds, many of which will 

 not do well in this climate. 



Currants (Ribes aureum). 



In the western counties I found some years ago that the golden flow- 

 ered currant was under cultivation, not for its flowers, as with us, but 

 for its fruits, and I was told that the people there prized them and re- 

 garded them as well worth cultivating. 



