NEED OF IMPROVEMENT 39 



There is no especial difficulty in combining yield and quality, 

 but the best varieties are in general too delicate to withstand 

 shipment for long distances unless picked green, which is an in- 

 jury to the flavor, except in such cases as the banana and the pear. 

 That the ideal market apple has not yet been produced is a fact 

 that shows what remains to be done. Many more new varieties 

 of pears, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries will 

 continue to be produced before all sections will be supplied with 

 the best varieties both for home use and market purposes. 



Vegetables are in much the same condition as fruits. Vast 

 improvement in most kinds has been effected within recent 

 years, and it is still going on at a rapid rate. The tomato has 

 been developed from the worthless " love apple " within the life- 

 time of men yet living, who remember when this now luscious 

 fruit suffered an evil reputation as the supposed cause of cancer. 



Asparagus, lettuce, and radishes have been wonderfully im- 

 proved within a generation, not to mention celery and sweet 

 corn ; and as matters are going now, onions will be made more 

 delicate in their flavor, and many a vegetable will come into 

 common use that is hardly yet introduced. 



The development of new and beautiful varieties of flowers 

 and other ornamental plants is only begun. Out of the mate- 

 rials at hand new and unheard-of effects will be produced now 

 that plant breeding is coming to be studied and understood 

 as a science. 



Need of more economic service. The first great need for 

 better plants and animals is in the interest of larger return 

 for the expense involved. It costs no more to fit and cultivate 

 the ground for a fifty-bushel crop of corn than for a thirty- 

 bushel crop, 1 in which case the extra twenty bushels are clear 

 gain. If ten or twenty ears of corn of the same variety, and as 

 nearly alike as possible, be planted in separate rows side by side, 



1 The average corn crop is about thirty bushels, yet the most profitable 

 crop at the University of Illinois has averaged ninety-six bushels for the last 

 three years. 



