NOTE. 



A BRIEF note regarding the method of dark forcing 

 rhubarb, published in the Rural New Yorker for 1898, 

 excited much interest and became the subject of many 

 inquiries. In order to more clearly answer the ques- 

 tions thus raised a brief outline of the methods was later 

 on published in the same paper. 



This gave occasion for some writers with very little 

 knowledge of the matter and a few borrowed ideas to 

 tell what they evidently did not know about the subject. 

 Whole paragraphs of the outline were woven into the 

 articles without even the courtesy of quotation marks. 

 A longer acquaintance with the work and some practical 

 experience would cause them to disown the children of 

 their earlier years and wonder why they had fathered 

 them at first. 



While fully agreeing with my illustrious ancestor, 

 Solomon, that "There is nothing new under the Sun," 

 the fact still remains that the woods are full of new 

 methods and their results, developed it may be from 

 old ideas. The ideas of the dark forcing method are 

 doubtless not entirely new. 



To say that I am the author and finisher of the 

 method would be misleading. 



But in so far as searching through the highways 

 and byways for the fragmentary experiences and efforts 

 of many growers, and in so far as gathering up these 

 fragments and combining them with several years of 



