IMPROVEMENT OF PLANTS. 20O, 



Mr. Gibbs : I had an opportunity in South Dakota to learn a 

 little about the sand cherry. I planted out two hundred bushes 

 I obtained from my neighbors. I do not know whether they were 

 eastern or western stock, but they were native in South Dakota. I 

 discovered at once that they respond very quickly to improved con- 

 ditions, and one way was by enriching the ground. There were a 

 number of bushes that produced cherries that were about three- 

 fourths of an inch in diameter. I promptly got the impression that 

 they were not worth much for culinary purposes. The sand cherry 

 gets a nice color and finish a little time before it is ripe, and per- 

 haps people get prejudiced because they pick it too soon. Later on 

 the neighbors' children found the sand cherries down in our garden, 

 and I gave them leave to pick and eat all they wished. Some time 

 afterward I got an order from a nurseryman in this state for a lot 

 of seedlings, so I went down there to identify those bushes that bore 

 the best fruit. I had already seen that there was as much difference 

 in the quality of the sand cherry as there was in the native plums. 

 I went through the bushes, and I found underneath certain bushes 

 a lot of pits where the dried fruit was hanging on. There I got a 

 pointer that was worth something. I got the opinion of the children 

 as to which were the best ones to eat. They got the best ones and 

 left the pits for me to pick up to grow stock irom. In this improve- 

 ment of the quality, given these better conditions of growth, I got 

 the impression that it was no less due to the vigor and hardiness of 

 the plant in resisting the winter's cold and the summer's heat than in 

 the plant itself. That was worth something. 



The President : I am very glad to find that those who have had 

 experience with the sand cherry are of my way t>f thinking, and 

 especially glad to know that Prof. Hansen has had so much experi- 

 ence in the matter, and the more experience he has the more con- 

 firmed it seems to me he is in his opinion that there is something 

 good in the wild sand cherry. It is not owing to his vitiated taste. 

 He is not like the man to whom Horace Greely wrote when the 

 farmer asked him by letter if guano was good to put on potatoes. 

 Mr. Greely wrote back that it might do for a man whose taste was 

 vitiated by rum and tobacco, but for his part he would rather have 

 good beefsteak gravy. (Laughter.) 



Mr. Poore : We have a little shrub growing along our fences 

 called the sand cherry. I am glad to know it is capable of improve- 

 ment, and if there is any chance for improvement I want to know 

 it. It suckers so badly that we consider it a nuisance. 



The President : So does horseradish. 



Mr. Poore : When I found it and tasted it, I found the pit too 

 large and the outside not large enough, and there is no taste to it. 



The President : I find, like Mr. Gibbs, the children cry for it 

 like they do for c astoria. 



Prof. Hansen : If you have a sand cherry that sprouts suckers, 

 you have not got the sand cherry ; you have got the choke cherry. 



