No. 133.1 469* 



Mr. Lawton had looked into this, and found nowhere any ac- 

 count of such an improvement. The strawberry is greatly altered 

 and ameliorated, but blacl^berry never, as far as I have learned. 



Judge Van Wyck remarked that an improved crop is obtained 

 by those who tiike tlie pains to clean the bushes of grass and other 

 growth, and keep the soil about them in order. 



In answer to a question of supply of the blackberry bushes — 



Mr. Lawton said that he could now spare about two hundred 

 roots for fifty cents each. At the coming crop I will present a 

 bush, with all its fruit on it, to this club, when the members will 

 be convinced by view and taste of its extraordinary qualities. 

 We now call it the New Rochelle blackberry. 



Members spoke of the various dew and blackberries, but no 

 one recognized the round and large one in question. The chair- 

 man had seen the berries of the running blackberry, he believed, 

 half an inch in diameter. 



The Secretary offered the following resolution : 



Resolved, That the American Institute be requested to call the 

 attention of the Government of the United States, and of each of 

 the States, to the preservation and planting live oak, white oak, 

 locust, pine and black walnut trees, and white ash, and that suit- 

 able rewards be offered by the governments to the persons suc- 

 cessful in such preservation or planting. 



Within the last two centuries we have made vast destruction of 

 some of these most useful trees, especially of the white pine, 

 And we forget that as this has been the work of our people, now 

 twenty-five millions in number, and that in the next twenty-five 

 years that population will double, and before a tree now planted 

 will be fit for ship or house building, as much timber will be 

 wanted as in the last period of two hundred years. 



Wise and paternal govf rnntents will take sure means to provide 

 for their woods and forests. England of old had forest laws for 

 that purpose. The forests were created by the king by commis- 



