412 ANNUAL REPORT. 



SMALL FRUITS AT SHAWANO. 



Shawano, Wis., Aug. 3, 1883. 



We have good success in small fruits, most of them growing 

 indigenous to the soil, and some, I think, that you do not produce — 

 especially the Blueberry, which is a distinction from the Huckle- 

 berry or Whortleberry and far superior, although nearly resem- 

 bling it in appearance and size. They afford quite a revenue to 

 the Indians on the Menomenee Reservation, who alone engage in 

 gathering them, and one day this week they marketed over 800 

 bushels. First with us, of wild fruits, comes the Strawberry, the 

 Blueberry, Raspberry, Huckleberry, Blackberry, and Cranberry late 

 in fall. I am safe in saying that in a good Blackberry season, there 

 are not less than fifteen thousand bushels that are left unpicked up 

 the river from here, within 25 miles, for the lack of market in 

 which they can be profitably handled, as we are isolated from rail- 

 road connections, and they will not so well stand carting over 

 rough wagon roads as some other fruits. 



When our projected " St. Paul and Eastern Grand Trunk R. R." 

 is completed through this county, we shall be able to give Min- 

 nesota a taste of our surplus good things, fruit-wise. 



W. S. WOOD. 



FERTILIZING vs. POLLENIZING. 



We need a new word in horticulture, or else an agreement as to 

 the use of an old one. Here is one Professor publishing a paper to 

 illustrate the influence of particular manures on certain crops, and 

 he calls it "fertilization." Then we have the phrase "commercial 

 fertilizers." All right according to the dictionary. But here 

 comes another Professor to tell us about the sexual characters of 

 plants, cross-breeding, hydridization, etc., and when he comes to 

 speak of the agency of the pollen of flowers, he gives us "fertilize" 

 and "fertilization" to mean something entirely different. Why 

 not sa,y Pollen ize, or Pollenization.i and have a bye-law to that ef- 

 fct, and leave the other word to apply exclusively to the enrich- 

 ment of the soil? Either this or a new word. This is referred 



