THE ART OF ORIGINATING STRAWBERRIES. 57 



Prof. Hansen : The history and development of strawberries 

 is a subject too exhaustive to take up. The general opinion is 

 that our strawberry came from the wild strawberry of the 

 east and was fertilized with the wild strawberry of South 

 America. It got its hardiness from the east and its size from 

 South America, and since then the two species have become so 

 intermingled that it is difficult to say how much of South 

 America is in a berry or how much of the native berry. It is 

 practically the same thing; you find in berries of eastern origin 

 that a type of the western berry is suggested. We find that 

 Hovey's Seedling in 1834 was the first fertilized with the wild 

 berry or with the South American species, but it failed in the 

 west; so thirty-five years ago Mr. Downing, of Kentucky, took 

 up the western type and accomplished something like the same 

 thing, so that our berries that have succeeded in the west are 

 our western type. There is a similarity in a great deal of tes- 

 timony on this point. 



Mr. Hartwell: Is there any European blood in our berries? 



Prof. Hansen: I doubt it. Take the strawberries of the 

 Continent and of England, and they would be of no value here. 

 The strain grown in Europe would not be hardy here. The 

 point we want to bear in mind is, so far as the history of the 

 strawberry is concerned, to take only those best varieties that 

 we know succeed in our particular part of the country. We 

 want to avoid by all means the pure South American type. 

 There is no hardiness, no size and no quality. 



ANNUAL MEETING. MINNESOTA STATE FORESTRY 

 ASSOCIATION. 



G. W. STRAND, SECRETARY, TAYLORS FALLS. 



On January 10th the twenty-third annual session convened in the 

 county commissioner's rooms in the court-house at Minneapolis. 

 President Owen being unable to be present, owing- to sickness, 

 Capt. J. N. Cross called the meeting to order. A few opening re- 

 marks were made referring to the growing interest being mani- 

 fested in forestry matters and calling the attention of the associa- 

 tion to the efforts being made by Col. J. S. Cooper, of Chicago, to- 

 wards the establishments of a national park at the headwaters of 

 the Mississippi. 



Reading of the secretary's record was dispensed with and a tno - 

 lion prevailed that before taking up the papers the "Cross bill," as 

 it passed the senate two years previous, be considered. After consid- 

 erable discussion on the bill and some amendments offered by 

 Gen. Andrews, it was decided to re-introduce the bill with a few 



