1880.] TRANSACTIONS. 69 



as soon as it was tit to be gathered, controlled the market. 

 Whether the price obtained was generally remnnerative can only 

 be inferred from the fact that those vvlio liave been longest, and 

 most lai-gely in the business, are extending rather than curtailing 

 their operations. If our people could only be induced to regard 

 and treat fruit, — the Strawberry especially, — as food, there need 

 be no limit to the crop that would be wanted. Sometime, in a 

 not remote future it is to be hoped, this truth will find common 

 acceptance, — that the Esquimaux diet is only adapted to the 

 Esquimaux climate: and that greasy steaks, from obese Short- 

 Horns, are about the last morsels that a sensible Yankee should 

 put under his waistcoat during our July suns. With plenty 

 of choice Strawberries snugly tu(;ked away, one may feel that 

 same sense of absolute content which tiie fashionable lady 

 remarked was unattainable from religious conviction, and as 

 only to be experienced from the knowledge that she was per- 

 fectly dressed. 



A recent writer upon " Success with Small Fruits," publishing, 

 at excessive cost, a very excellent work in which much that was 

 known before is shrewdly and well sandwiched between later 

 facts and theories ; when treating of liasphenies, remarks that: 



"The Fastolff, Northumberland Fillbasket, and Knevett's Giant, 

 are fine old English varieties that are found in private gardens, but 

 have never made their way into general favor." 



That those varieties are not widely cultivated may be true 

 enough. But has not the cause of that neglect been ignorance 

 of their very existence ? Your Secretary, — -whose eyes are not 

 alwa^'s closed, — lived for years unconscious that there was such 

 a berry as the Northumberland, although the late D. Waldo 

 Lincoln was growing it, the whole time. After it had been 

 transplanted to his " private garden," and its fruit been exhibited 

 upon your tables, you are able to judge whether it *' made its way 

 into general favor." No finer display was ever seen than that 

 perfect array of specimens from Clean street, part oidy as they 

 were of the famous yield which, A. D. 1880, once more vindi- 

 cated the soil and signalized the skill of our associate.* Ask 



* Frank J. Kinney. 

 10 



