NINETEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 217 



said no, it was not. I planted the Fitzgerald peach, and they 

 are like some varieties, fine when you get them, but they 

 rarely ever produce a crop. We had about twenty-five trees, 

 and I do not believe we ever picked five bushels at a time on 

 the whole twenty-five trees. So, if you have a variety, no 

 matter how fine it may be, if it cannot be relied upon to 

 produce crops which will give you a profit, it ought not to 

 be selected. Another illustration is the Gandy strawberry. 

 We oftentimes hear people say that the}- want a late straw- 

 berry, one that will come on late. Well, the Gandy is late. 

 It is a nice-looking berry, but it is a berry that has got to 

 have the right kind of soil in order to do well. When I went 

 on to my farm in Michigin, I was trying to get along as 

 economically as I could. I had invested about all the money 

 I had on my farm. I did not go very far away to get my 

 plants. I had a neighbor who had been trying the Gandy 

 strawberry. He had been growing them about three years. 

 I went to him one day, and I sad, "What do you think of the 

 Gandy?" "Well," he said, "it is a nice-looking plant, seems 

 to grow well, but I do not get any crop." "Can I get some 

 Gandy plants of you?" "All you want," he said. So I got 

 some Gandy plants, enough to plant seven rows twelve rods 

 long. I planted those on a piece of land which had been 

 broken up two years before that from sod. This land was of 

 a clayey, loamy nature, heavy and strong. The land on 

 which my neighbor, from whom I got the plants, had been 

 trying to raise the variety was a sandy soil. I put mine out, 

 and the next season I netted from those seven rows 

 twelve rods long, thirty-five dollars. The variety did 

 well by me. My neighbor got no crop to speak of. That 

 illustrates the adaptability of a particular variety to certain 

 soils. You cannot grow the Gandy strawberry on a light, 

 sandy soil, but on a heavy, strong, clay soil it does well. No 

 one would think of growing grapes on muck. If you did 

 you would probably have a long time to think about your 

 fruit lie fore you got an v. Xo one would think of trying to 



