NEED OF IMPROVEMENT 39 
There is no especial difficulty in combining yield and quality, 
but the best varieties are in general too delicate to withstand 
shipment for long distances unless picked green, which is an in- 
jury to the flavor, except in such cases as the banana and the pear. 
That the ideal market apple has not yet been produced is a fact 
that shows what remains to be done. Many more new varieties 
of pears, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries will 
continue to be produced before all sections will be supplied with 
the best varieties both for home use and market purposes. 
Vegetables are in much the same condition as fruits. Vast 
improvement in most kinds has been effected within recent 
years, and it is still going on at a rapid rate. The tomato has 
been developed from the worthless ‘‘ love apple” within the life- 
time of men yet living, who remember when this now luscious 
fruit suffered an evil reputation as the supposed cause of cancer. 
Asparagus, lettuce, and radishes have been wonderfully im- 
proved within a generation, not to mention celery and sweet 
corn ; and as matters are going now, onions will be made more 
delicate in their flavor, and many a vegetable will come into 
common use that is hardly yet introduced. 
The development of new and beautiful varieties of flowers 
and other ornamental plants is only begun. Out of the mate- 
rials at hand new and unheard-of effects will be produced now 
that plant breeding is coming to be studied and understood 
as a science. 
Need of more economic service. The first great need for 
better plants and animals is in the interest of larger return 
for the expense involved. It costs no more to fit and cultivate 
the ground for a fifty-bushel crop of corn than for a thirty- 
bushel crop,! in which case the extra twenty bushels are clear 
gain. If ten or twenty ears of corn of the same variety, and as 
nearly alike as possible, be planted in separate rows side by side, 
1 The average corn crop is about thirty bushels, yet the most profitable 
crop at the University of Illinois has averaged ninety-six bushels for the last 
three years, 
