30 THE CONNECTICUT POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



NEW VARIETIES OF SMALL FRUITS 



By G. S. BUTLER 



IT is practically impossible for the average fruit-grower 

 to obtain reliable information in regard to novelties. 



Those who are honest (like ego) are ignorant ; those 

 who know can't afford to tell until after the public has 

 paid the regular fee for finding out; viz., all buy one. 



If nurserymen would make it a rule to test, on their own 

 grounds, every article they list before offering it, they would 

 save many a disappointment to their customers ; but who 

 would reward them for the time and dollars spent in such 

 service ? The constant demand for some new thing, which 

 the Athenians manifested generations ago, must be satisfied, 

 and gardeners cannot wait for their local nurseryman's 

 trial ; he must know about these new things when they are 

 first mentioned and be able to supply them at once, or his 

 customers are lost, perhaps forever. 



The new and rare importation from Japan, New Zealand 

 or Patagonia has never been heard of except by some 

 "wizard," or buzzard, "of horticulture" in Siberia or 

 Borneo ; and, of course, the nurseryman knows only what 

 he hears, — that the novelt}^ is undoubtedly destined to revo- 

 lutionize horticulture. When people can detect in one little 

 plum the flavor of peach, apricot, nectarine, grape, water- 

 melon, tomato and horse-chestnut, what further use have we 

 for all those old useless relics of bygone ages ? 



I would not for a moment belittle the work of honest men 

 who are trying to give us something better than we now 

 possess. Their successful work will brighten the lives of 

 all future generations and encourage others to pry still 

 deeper into nature's secrets. I believe we are only at the 

 gateway to scientific horticulture. The continued labors of 

 such men as Luther Burbauk, who, it is said, makes it a 

 rule to destroy every plant not equal in every way to some 

 similar one already in cultivation, and its superior in one or 

 more points, following up the survival of the fittest for gen- 

 erations with his plants, can but be the greatest blessing to 

 horticulturists and humanity ; nor can this generation appre- 



