THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



berries from the two lots, and those 

 were Arnold. Vernon came through 

 the winter all right, but I regard it as 

 worthless, and I may say the same of 

 Bid well as far as I can judge from a 

 first crop. One or two only of the 

 Finch plants proved very prolific. The 

 few of Arnold and James Vick that 

 were left have been trying to make up 

 their losses, and have sent out a splendid 

 lot of new plants. Manchester and Jer- 

 sey Queen came through the winter ahead 

 of all other varieties, new or old. The 

 Jersey Queen had sent out the most i 

 runners, and looked the brightest after 

 the snow was gone. In regard to the 

 yield of fruit, Manchester and Queen 

 are the only ones that need be men- 

 tioned, and these I watched with con- 

 siderable interest as the fruiting season 

 approached. Manchester made a good 

 show of fruit stalks and blossoms, 

 which in due course developed into a 

 fine show of fruit. Jersey Queen was 

 later, and did not make as good a dis- 

 play. When Manchester was at its 

 best it was a splendid sight to look at, 

 every plant appearing to have five or 

 six fine berries in different stages of 

 ripenes.*?, and it was at once pronounced 

 an acquisition, and worthy of culti- 

 vation ou a larger scale. Jersey Queen 

 was later, and did not look so promising 

 as to receive an immediate endorse- 

 ment, Vjut was voted worthy of further 

 trial. When the Manchesters were 

 nearly done the Jersey Queen began to 

 show up a little better, and produced 

 some splendid berries, but its habit is 

 quite different to the other, in that you 

 scarcely see the fruit till you look for it 

 under the leaves, whereas the Man- 

 chester holds its berries up to the gaze 

 of every passer-by. Comparison, there- 

 fore, of the two by appearances is very 

 deceptive. As compared with the 

 Wilson, the Manchester commences 

 ripening later and is done earlier ; 

 therefore at a certain period it shows to 



better advantage, and gives rise to ex- 

 pectations that are not quite realized by 

 the number of baskets picked. On the 

 contrary, the Jersey Queen yields more 

 baskets than its appearance would lead 

 one to expect. It commences perhaps 

 three days after Manchester, but it 

 holds out a week after Wilson, and con- 

 tinues all the time slowly but surely 

 bringing its ben-ies to perfection — and 

 such berries ! They are as much ahead 

 of the Manchester as the Manchester is 

 of the Wilson, and neither of the two 

 produce anything like the same pro- 

 portion of small berries. The fine 

 berries of the Jersey Queen soon fill up 

 a basket ; and although there did not 

 appear to Ije so many of them as of the 

 Manchester, they continued, in spite of 

 the drought, in furnishing fine berries 

 for repeated pickings, till from a row 

 three yards shorter than that of its rival 

 we had picked one basket the most. 

 This was certainly unexpected. I am 

 satisfied that I could not have selected 

 in any part of my field a section of 

 a row of Wilsons of the same length 

 as the i-ows of those two kinds, and 

 planted at the same time, that yielded 

 as much fruit. But it must be recol- 

 lected that the Wilsons had suSered 

 very much the worst by the spring 

 frosts, therefore the comparison another 

 year might be quite different. As these 

 two varieties escaped the frost better 

 than the Wilson, so also they appeared 

 to sufier less from the drought. All 

 these new varieties were planted on 

 sandy soil. 



Now as regards the keeping and ship- 

 ping qualities of these two varieties, or 

 I might sa}^ of the Jersey Queen only, 

 for of the other I took no notice ; but 

 happening to put a basket of the 

 former in a case I was sending to a 

 friend, that had to travel on two 

 lines of railroad and lie over for several 

 hours at a station because trains did 

 not connect, I was surprised to learn 



