EXPERIMENTS WITH STRAWBERRIES. 275 



of varieties we have called tender and those we call iron-clad. But 

 the fall had been remarkably favorable for the perfect ripening of 

 apple wood, and he failed to find any well marked points of differ- 

 ence between the wood of Ben Davis and Duchess. Yet after giving 

 the winter to patient investigation he decided that Whitney, Tetofsky, 

 Duchess, and the hardy Russians never failed to deposit a " thimble " 

 of hardened crystalline starch at the point of growth on every twig. 



This means that, irrespective of the seasons, the truly hardy trees 

 for the west are those that hold perfect foliage during the summer and 

 ripen their wood in the fall like the hickory or the currant bush. It 

 also means more, as this class of trees, as a rule, hibernate as perfectly 

 as the polar bear, or our currant bush and old-fashioned purple lilac. 

 Beyond shadow of doubt if the Rambo and Rhode Island Greening 

 would ripen their wood every fall as perfectly as does the Duchess in 

 our climate, they would endure perfectly our most trying winters, 

 providing also that they were as perfect as sleepers during our winter 

 changes. 



Mr. Smith reports truly that some of his black-hearted trees have 

 formed new wood over the diseased structure and promised yet to 

 become valuable. In Iowa we have had these damaged trees by the 

 hundred thousand. But they appear to be sap-poisoned and we rarely 

 get smooth, perfect fruit from them that will keep as it did when the 

 trees were sound. J. L. Budd, Ames, Iowa. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH STRAWBERRIES. 



On the above subject a recent bulletin from the Ohio Agricultural 

 Experiment Station contains the following : 



If we separate varieties of strawberries into two classes, viz., those 

 that continue a long time in bearing, and those that have a short sea- 

 son, we find that the most prolific fall into the first class, while those 

 that give small crops continue but a short time in bearing. In other 

 words, those that give the greatest number of pickings during the 

 season produce the largest crops. It might seem that the aggregate 

 crop would depend as much, or more, upon the quantity of fruit ripe 

 at each picking, as upon the number of pickings. It would also 

 seem that the varieties that ripen slowly and continue a long time in 



