Varieties, their Character and Adaptation to Soils. 



95 



Strawberry Blossoms : Perfect- 

 Flowered and Pistillate. 



kinds last year in one specimen-bed. The 

 plants were treated precisely alike, and per- 

 mitted to mature all their fruit, I being well 

 content to let eight or ten bushels go to waste 

 in order to see just what each variety could do. 

 From such trial-beds the comparative merits of 

 each kind can be seen at a glance. Highly 

 praised new-comers, which are said to supersede 

 everything, must show what they are and can do 

 beside the old standard varieties that won their laurels years ago. I thus 

 learn that but few can endure the test, and occasionally I find an old kind 

 ; sent out with a new name. When visiting fruit farms in New Jersey last 

 summer, I was urged to visit a small place on which was growing a 

 wonderful new berry. The moment I saw the fruit and foliage, I recog- 

 'nized the Col. Cheney, forced into unusual luxuriance by very favor- 

 ; able conditions. Other experienced growers, whose attention I called to 

 the distinguishing marks of this variety, agreed with me at once ; but the 

 proprietor, who probably had never seen the Cheney before and did not 

 know where the plants came from, thought it was a remarkable new variety, 

 j and as such it might have been honestly sent out. Trial-beds at once 

 detect the old kinds with new names, and thus may save the public 

 from a vast deal of imposition. 



