314 ANNUAL REPORT 



within bounds, I believe I have spent about $1,000 in trying to 

 get a more perfect fruit, but so far have been unable to find any 

 variety that, all things considered, is its equal upon my grounds, 

 and with my system of cultivation. 



Soon after the introduction of the "Wilson, new varieties be- 

 gun to appear in greater numbers than before, and of every 

 year since it may truly be said "still they come." The new 

 varieties introduced within the last twenty-five years would, no 

 doubt, run into thousands. If I should try to name them it 

 would be about as interesting as reading a dictionary up side 

 down. . 



Since it has been proved that with our present facilities for 

 shipping, and with care in picking and handling, strawberries 

 may be brought from the Gulf states and reach us in fair condi- 

 tion, the season for this delicious fruit is lengthened from three 

 or four weeks to more than as many months, in fact from Feb- 

 ruary until July. 



CONTRASTS IN COMMERCE. 



The quantity consumed now as comj)ared with even thii'ty 

 years ago^ is almost past belief. I quote the words of President 

 Earle in his address to the American Horticultural Society at 

 Cleveland, Ohio, last September: "Thirty years ago the daily 

 receipts of strawberries in Chicago, now the second greatest 

 fruit market in the world, could all have been carried in one 

 wagon, at one load, and it would not have been a large load 

 either. Now, whole railway trains are engaged to carry the 

 daily supply to that market, which often amounts to three hun- 

 dred tons per day, and sometimes to twice that quantity. Thirty 

 or forty years ago it would be safe to say that all the strawber- 

 ries marketed in the United States in one day could have been 

 gathered by a force no larger than I have seen bending over the 

 smiling rows of a single plantation." 



RASPBERRY RECOLLECTIONS. 



But I must leave this branch of my subject and return for a 

 moment to my grandmother's garden. In it there were, in ad- 

 dition to the little strawberry bed, two varieties of raspberries. 

 One of them now known as the old Golden Cup, and the other a 

 red variety which I presume was the Red Antwerp. The old red 

 and white Dutch currants were in the srreatest abundance, and 



