BREEDING 225 



value of the variety upon his place, not upon the experi- 

 ment station farm, and he is the only person who can find 

 it out. To thoroughly test a variety is to introduce it. 

 When it is once introduced the general consensus of opinion 

 of men who actually grow it for the purpose for which it is 

 desired forms the best and the only criterion of its value." 

 After making variety tests of strawberries for a series 

 of years, with a discrimination and minuteness of record 

 almost unknown in America, the Woburn Fruit Experi- 

 ment Farm, of England, reached this conclusion in 1900 : 

 "The experiments have entirely failed in proving ac- 

 curately the respective merits of different varieties of 

 strawberries. The crops of any particular variety vary 

 enormously from year to year. The comparative merits 

 of different varieties of the same age, when under precisely 

 similar conditions, are almost entirely different in one 

 year from what they are in the next. . . . The average 

 difference in the position of the heaviest cropping variety 

 and the lightest cropping variety from one year to another 

 was twelve places out of sixty-four varieties tested. . . . 

 Our results are of little value when applied to the country 

 at large, where the variations in soil are infinitely greater 

 than those on our own farm. Without impugning our 

 ground or manure, there would seem to be ample explana- 

 tion for the variations noticed in dealing with such a 

 short-lived, low growing and somewhat delicate plant. 

 The crop must depend largely, if not chiefly, on the prog- 

 ress of events during the short period from blossoming to 

 fruitage. We do not hesitate to say that a large pro- 

 portion of the energy of many horticultural stations is 

 entirely thrown away in making large collections of 

 different varieties with the sole object of recording their 

 behavior at the station in question." 



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