PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 279 



more, have never borne fruit. I have had the bushes growing five years 

 in my garden, without any good results, and I know of but one man, a Mr. 

 Butler, of Brooklyn, who has been successful, and he only in a very limited 

 degree. The filbert is a tree rather than a bush, and some of Mr. Gilbert's 

 are six inches in diameter, but they are all diseased. If pruning, as 

 recommended in the extract read, will cure the disease, it will be valuable, 

 for the fruit sells at twenty-five cents a pound. Our hazel is a bush, and 

 never grows to such trees as Mr. Butler's filberts, some of which are ten 

 feet high, and have a broad spreading head. The hazel grows up straight, 

 slender canes, two to five feet high, bearing the fruit at the top. There 

 are two kinds: one bears the fruit in clusters, and the other separate, with 

 long, tapering husks. 



Strawberries — How to Grow them and what Kinds to Grow. 



Mr. Robinson said: 



As a general thing, there is nothing about the farmer's home more neg- 

 lected than small garden fruits. Many have no strawberry bed; and others, 

 who have one, do not seem to understand that there is as much difference 

 in strawberries as in corn or potatoes; and that it is important to have a. 

 variety. Sometimes one sort will produce well one year, and sometimes 

 another; and one kind comes early and another late. Currants, too, are 

 not all alike; neither will the farmer receive the greatest profit from them 

 when they are sufiered to grow up like a neglected hedge along the garden 

 wall. To induce a more extensive growth of these small fruits, I intend 

 to give some practical information, and such hints upon the use of fruit in 

 a hygienic point of view, as will encourage the wives and children of 

 farmers, if it does not them, to extend its culture. In families where 

 gai'den fruits are used the most extensively, you will always find the 

 greatest degree of health. Instead of producing summer complaints in 

 the bowels, they are the very best preventives. Beside having some of 

 them upon the table every meal while in season, you should preserve such 

 quantities in sealed bottles or jars, that you can have them every day until 

 strawberries are ripe in June. 



We suppose we need not offer arguments to any one who has ever grown 

 strawberries in the garden, to prove that no other fruit or vegetable can 

 be grown with greater profit, whether for sale or use. They are healthful 

 because they are the first garden fruit, when nature craves just such sub- 

 acid food as the strawberry, and if produced in such abundance, of the most 

 choice varieties, that all the family can eat to their hearts' content, we are 

 willing to guarantee that while strawberries are in season there will be 

 very little occasion for calling in the doctor. Therefore, for the promotion 

 of health, wealth and happiness, we urge farmers to pay more attention to 

 their cultivation. 



THE BEST VARIETIES OF STRAWBERRIES. 



There are so many conflicting opinions that it is difficult for a farmer to 

 tell what sorts to order. Perhaps the following opinions will aid him. 

 I believe that the new seedlings, known, or to be known, as the " Tri- 

 bune strawberries," will become great favorites, but it will require some 



