220 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



Plants of Michel were stolen from the originator, 

 J. G. Michel, of Judsonia, Arkansas, and it was introduced 

 the same year by different firms as Michel and Osceola. 

 Usually, it is best to send a seedling to a number of 



strawberry specialists and ex- 

 periment stations for prelim- 

 inary trial before it is intro- 

 duced to the public. If the 

 reports from these tests are 

 encouraging, there are several 

 Vv'ays of bringing the new 

 variety to the attention of the 

 public. The most common 

 method, and usually the most 

 satisfactory, is to sell it out- 

 right to a nurseryman. Some 

 breeders prefer to let the nur- 

 seryman handle it on com- 

 mission, in which case the 

 originator gets twenty or twenty-five per cent of the gross 

 sales of plants. Occasionally the originator introduces 

 it himself, but this is rarely satisfactory unless he is an 

 experienced propagator. 



Fig. 26. — Matthew Craw- 

 ford, for nearly fifty years the 

 foremost North American prop- 

 agator of the strawberry. 



Naming and Testing New Varieties 



No other fruit has a larger number of inappropriate 

 and freak names. In 1882 T. T. Lyon indignantly 

 branded the name of a recently introduced sort, Big Bob, 

 as "rowdyish and an outrage upon propriety." Nothing 

 daunted, the originator of this euphonious variety pro- 

 ceeded to inflict upon the public a seedling of it, which he 

 named Big Bob's Baby. For many years the Code of 



