STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 313 



the Eocky Mountains, and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of 

 Mexico. In size it was equal, if not superior, to any of its prede- 

 cessors, and in firmness and keeping qualities while being car- 

 ried long distances, it was far ahead of any hitherto known 

 variety. Its productiveness when upon rich soil and well cared 

 for seemed almost to be marvelous. My own success, such as it has 

 been, is in reality due more to my getting this variety at an 

 early day, and then caring for it almost as a mother does her 

 pet babe, than to any other one cause. 



My first bed in Green Bay was set in 1859. It consisted of 

 several varieties, si>ch as were to be obtained, and we succeeded 

 in growing one or two fair crops from them. I remember well 

 our first attempt to sell the fruit. Our oldest son, then a boy of 

 thirteen or fourteen, was sent to the city with a few of them 

 nicely hulled and measured up in dry measure, and told to sell 

 them for twelve and a half cents per quart, but the best he could 

 get was an offer of ten cents for one quart, and he brought them 

 home. 



The following year I sold the first bushel to one man, deliver- 

 ing them to him as he wanted them, nicely hulled, for one barrel 

 of flour. In 1862 we had our first Wilson berries, and in 1863 

 the first crop of them. In 1864 the size and yield was beyond 

 anything I had ever supposed possible to obtain from any variety 

 or by any known system of cultivation. 



In 1875 I measured off an exact quarter of an acre of them, and 

 picked the fruit by itself and kept a careful and accurate account 

 of the different pickings. The result was 3,571 quarts, or at the 

 rate of four hundred and forty-six and a half bushels per acre. 



Last season, although one of almost uuj)recedented drought, 

 having but two light showers upon the vines from the time they 

 came into bloom until we were done picking, the average yield 

 was a little over two hundred and fifty bushels per acre. About 

 one-third of the ground, which was more light and sandy than 

 the balance, was aided somewhat by artificial watering. With 

 two or three more good showers, the crop would doubtless have 

 overrun three hundred bushels per acre. 



It is said that in many places this magnificent j)lant fails to do 

 as well as in former years. I see no signs of failure on my 

 grounds, and never had a finer showing for a large yield the 

 coming season than when we put them into winter quarters last 

 month. Still, with all of its fine qualities, it is not the perfect 

 fruit that we all have been and are still looking for. Speaking 

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