1909. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
709 
A LETTER FROM JOHN LEWIS CHILDS. 
I have read your comments from time to time 
in The Rural New-Yorker on the Wonderberry, 
and, assuming that you desire to be perfectly fair 
and just, and not to appear in the light of persecut¬ 
ing anyone, you will have no objection to publish¬ 
ing this communication in your next issue, and I 
submit it for that purpose 
Your condemnation of the Wonderberry, on tests 
from small seedling plants in pots, just maturing 
their first fruit, is obviously unfair. The plants 
should have time to develop a good crop of berries, 
and the berries should have time to become ripe. No 
one would think of eating a grape as soon as it 
turns purple. It must have time to ripen; so with 
the Wonderberry, and the Wonderberry will not 
show its true characteristics and produce fruit of 
the best quality unless given space and time to de¬ 
velop in the open ground or in a large pot. 
When fully matured and ripe, the fruit is about 
as palatable as the tomato, possibly a little sweeter, 
with some of the tomato acid; however, it is not in 
a raw state that the fruit is most useful. It is of 
the greatest value for cooking or canning in any 
form, fully equal to blueberries, and the great quan¬ 
tity of berries which a few plants will produce in 
the open ground makes it a valuable berry plant, es¬ 
pecially for cooking purposes. 
As to the Wonderberry being identical with any 
wild nightshade, I would say, bring your wild plants 
here and compare them with our three-acre patch of 
Wonderberries and be convinced of the error 
As to its being poisonous, come here and we will 
give you an exhibition of eating Wonderberries, 
ripe, green, foliage, stems and branches; in fact, 
any part of the fruit or plant in any stage of 
growth. 
I am familiar with the garden huckleberry, hav¬ 
ing grown it a few years ago, but never offered it 
for sale. The Wonderberry is an entirely different 
plant. Yours very truly, 
JOHN LEWIS CHILDS. 
Classics From a Catalogue. 
In the last catalogue issued by Mr. Childs the 
folllowing strong statement is made: • 
We have introduced many of the greatest novelties 
that have come out in the past twenty years, but the 
Wonderberry, which we are offering ( solely ) all 
over the zvorld this year is the greatest one zve ever 
had. Its influence in an economic sense on the hu¬ 
man race zvill be far-reaching, for it is entirely novel 
and a distinct and valuable article of food zvhich 
anyone may grow in abundance anywhere at prac¬ 
tically no cost. In short, get the maximum results 
from a minimum output in labor or expense. Luther 
Burbank’s apparently zvild estimates of its value have 
been more than confirmed by our large crops of it the 
past Summer, and by the fruiting specimens in our 
greenhouses this Winter. 
In the same catalogue Mr. Burbank ably backs 
up Mr. Childs, as follows, about a fruit which is 
now declared to be “about as palatable as the to¬ 
mato” : 
This absolutely nezv species of berry plant is of 
great scientific interest, having been produced by 
the combination of two very distinct wild species, 
Solanum guineense of West Africa and Solanum 
villosum of the West Coast of America. Neither 
of these wild species bears edible berries, but this 
nezv species bears the most delicious, wholesome 
and healthful berries in the utmost profusion, and 
alzvays comes as exactly true from seed as any spe¬ 
cies produced by nature. 
R. N.-Y.—Mr. Childs does not quite get the point 
of the present discussion. He can readily see that 
we are not specially interested in what he grows 
for his own consumption. He will, we think, freely 
admit that we have a right to be interested in what 
he sells to our readers under the extravagant terms 
of praise which we copy from his catalogue The 
facts are that seeds sold by Mr. Childs and plainly 
marked Wonderberry, grew into plants which have 
been identified by high botanical authorities as Sol¬ 
anum nigrum or black nightshade. Mr. Luther 
Burbank offered $10,000 to anyone who would prove 
that the “Wonderberry” is a black nightshade, and 
we claim to have given conclusive proof by obtaining 
the seeds from Mr. Childs and submitting the plants 
to botanists. It is true that we would not judge the 
quality of a grape before the fruit was ripe, but 
the proof that Wonderberry is Solanum nigrum does 
not rest upon its quality. If Mr. Childs offered a 
new hybrid grape as the “greatest ever,” and the 
foliage cluster and vine proved to be identical with 
Concord or Delaware, the public would, no doubt, 
accept such evidence at once. 
We will take up the quality of the Wonderberry 
in due time. Just now we are proving to Mr. Bur¬ 
bank that it is a black nightshade. This Wonder¬ 
berry was exhibited at the Boston Flower Show 
recently. Here are two newspaper comments: 
Luther Burbank. Hie “wizard of the plant world," re¬ 
ceived his first severe snubbing yesterday when his latest 
creation, the “Wonderberry" or “Sunberry,” was declared 
a failure. Thousands and tens of thousands of amateur 
gardeners all over the country have tried to cultivate 
the “Wonderberry” without much success in this vicinity. 
Yesterday Mr. Burbank’s new berry was labelled “worth¬ 
less” by the judges of the Massachusetts Horticultural 
Society.—Boston Sunday Post. 
Luther Burbank’s “Wonderberry” came in for a “roast" 
at the annual sweet pea show of the Massachusetts Horti¬ 
cultural Society, which was opened this noon at Horti¬ 
cultural Hall. On a table surrounded by choice specimens 
of fruit stood a plant labelled “Burbank’s Wonderberry. 
Probably Solanum nigrum. Worthless.” The horticul¬ 
turists who passed judgment on tiiis novelty in the fruit 
line declare that the plant is nothing but; a wild potato, 
and that its fruit, so far from being valuable, is not 
only worthless, but positively deleterious. It lias been 
grown in several greenhouses around Boston, and has been 
thrown out in several cases. At the Harvard Botanic 
Garden are specimens of the plant, and it was stated that 
several, Italian laborers who had partaken freely of the 
fruit, which resembles a blueberry, were made ill by eat¬ 
ing it. While a few of the horticulturists were inclined 
to think there might be something in the claim that it 
was produced by cross-fertilization of two African p'ants, 
the older ones, qnd those of greatest reputation, declare 
that the plant may lx' found growing wild in the woods 
and that it is altogether worthless.—Boston Transcript. 
We are informed that both plant and fruit ex¬ 
hibited at this exhibition were grown from seed ob¬ 
tained from John Lewis Childs. 
A DOSE OF NIGHTSHADE. 
Mr. Burbank's weed at this moment occupies a place 
of honor in my garden. There is not sufficient difference 
from Solanum* nigrum to warrant any one in pronounc¬ 
ing it edible. And one has greater reason to say that 
tin; Dwarf Stone is not a tomato, than to say this thing 
is not black nightshade; and 1 speak with the authority 
of a botanist of no mean reputation. The whole trans¬ 
action from beginning to end savors of falsehood, and 
a reckless tampering with public confidence. 
North Carolina. l. g. bedell, m. d. 
Mv experience with the Wonderberry, which I planted 
this Spring for the first time, is that it is one and the 
same thing as the nightshade that T have been used to 
all my life, and still class it as a very hateful weed. 
I consider Mr. Burbank an honorable man, but think he 
has surely overestimated the Wonderberry. If his offer 
of if 10,000 was made in good faith—then you are entitled 
to it. I live in the arid West and only a few hundred 
miles east of the Desert Laboratory located near Tucson, 
Arizona. OTis Andrews- 
El Paso Co., Texas. 
The cut of the Wonderberry ( ?) on first page of Tiie 
II. N.-Y., July 10, is a fao simile of many of our own 
plants as we had them. Tb© Solanum nigrum is a well- 
known plant in ibis neighborhood, especially in the 
town of Webster, N. Y. We grew, and gave away quite a 
lot of the plants this Spring and we yet have to find 
one person who will eat them, but always spit them 
out when tasting them. As we know Solanum nigrum, 
this is the identical thing over again. A prominent firm 
of growers of this city tell us it is identical with the 
Solanum nigrum as they have handled it, in a small 
way for several seasons. The public will have none of 
it. however. JOHN CHARLTON & SONS- 
Rochester, N. Y. 
When we first saw the announcement) of the Wonder¬ 
berry we decided we did not care to touch it as we felt 
quite confident it was nothing but the so-called garden 
huckleberry which was boomed a few years ago and 
which was almost worthless. We think our first impres¬ 
sion of it was about right. ford seed co. 
Ravenna, Ohio. 
I bought a package of Wonderberry seed from .T. Lewis 
Childs for 20 cents, and fearing they might not grow, I 
paid him 60 cents for three plants. The plants are now 
bearing a few nightshade berries, the seed plants being 
eaten up by an insect that is common on the wild 
nightshade that grows around the country, c. c. ball- 
Pennsylvania. 
We have never taken hold of this plant, as we always 
touch novelties very lightly. There are some grown here 
in our place by parties who are close observers, and 
they are pronounced to be nightshade. Some think it 
an improvement on the old nightshade and others do 
not. YOUNGERS & CO. 
Geneva, Nebraska. 
I grew the Wonderberry very successfully from seed 
bought from John Lewis Childs. They were given care¬ 
ful, attention and watched carefully; part of them were 
transplanted and part of them left in the original place 
of planting. They grew luxuriantly and more like their 
father every day. I Itecame suspicious of their resem- 
bance to the nightshade and compared them frequently 
and could find no difference exxcept one had a ridge on 
th© stalk and the other was smooth. The berries grew 
in great profusion, far more than shown in your picture, 
and were nasty and sickening, without any taste. Chil¬ 
dren usually eat anything, but “bucked” on them after 
the first trial. I had them chopped up because the 
wav they grew 1 was afraid they would become a 
pest. P. H. LEVY- 
Grimes Co., Texas. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Two persons were suffocated to death 
July 14 in the burning of the Evans building at Scran¬ 
ton, Pa. The loss is $25,000. . . . Up to July 14, the 
Chicago Tribune recorded 114 persons killed through¬ 
out the country as a result of Independence Day cele¬ 
brations.Inly 14 there were numerous riots at the 
mills of the Pressed Steel Car Company at McKees 
Rocks, six miles below Pittsburg, Pa. At least one 
hundred persons were injured in pistol fights, by stones 
or clubs. The disorder is due to a strike. The strike 
is the result of dissatisfaction which dates from the 
reopening of the plant five months ago, after being 
closed on account of the panic. At that time all wages 
were cut, but the men were told that the cut would 
be temporary. According to the men the wages instead 
of being restored have been cut still further. Them the 
“pool" system of payment was inaugurated where¬ 
by men are employed in gangs without being 
told what wages they are to receive. At. the 
end of two weeks a sum is apportioned to each pool 
and divided among the men in it. According to this 
plan it is said that skilled mechanics have been re¬ 
ceiving $13.75 for twelve days’ work. Another grievance 
of the men is the failure of the company to repair the 
checking clock which registers the hours of labor put 
in by each man or to assume responsibility for its al¬ 
leged* incorrect notations. The men declared that the 
clock is so irregular that they lose several hours each 
week and that frequent demands that it lie repaired 
have been met with refusal. The State Constabulary 
was called out to check the disorder, which was still 
continuing a week later. The workmen are largely 
foreigners. . . . Wyatt II. Ingram, Jr., trust officer 
of tin; Hibernia Banking and Trust Company, the largest 
bank in New Orleans, was arrested July 14 charged with 
the embezzlement of $100,000 from the hank. . . . 
July 15 the five story building at, (lie northeast corner 
of Eleventh and Market streets, Philadelphia, Pa., col¬ 
lapsed. killing eight persons aud burying twenty-eight 
others. All the dead) were men who had been working 
on the building which was undergoing repairs. Among 
the injured who were taken to hospitals were a number 
who had been walking on the sidewalk and who were 
caught beneath the bricks, mortar and timber. The 
collapse was caused by the swinging of a heavy iron 
beam against the wooden shoring which supported the 
upner stories of the building. For several weeks the 
building has been undergoing repairs. Three upper 
stories were supported by wooden timbers until the iron 
sub-structure should be put in place. It was in raising 
one of the iron beams that the wooden supports were 
knocked away. . . . After a trial at Memphis. Tenu., 
lasting 23 days the jury in the trial of Marcellus 
Rinehart and other night riders charged with tiie mur¬ 
der of Rufus Hunter, a well-to-do farmer, highly re¬ 
spected in the dark tobacco district of Montgomery 
county, Tennessee, returned a verdict July 17 acquitting 
three of the defendants aud finding Rinehart guilty of 
murder in the first degree, with mitigating circum¬ 
stances. 'Plie three acquitted must still face a charge of 
conspiracy, out of which it is alleged the killing grew. 
Hunter, a man of excellent standing, was called lo his 
front door on the night of June 8, 1908, and riddled with 
shot as he stood on the threshold, tiie assassins crying that, 
he had talked too much. Hundreds of shots were fired 
into ids dwelling after he fell, bis wife and daughters 
lying quaking in their beds while tiie fusillade was on. 
As (lie men were masked recognition of voices and con¬ 
fessions made later proved factors in the trial, Rinehart 
at least appearing to have been known. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—’Pile Summer meeting of the 
Maryland State Horticultural Society will be held at 
Mountain Lake Park July 30 to August 2. A number 
of interesting speakers have been secured, including Dr. 
H. W. Wiley and Mr. W. A. Taylor of the II. S. De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, S. L. Lupton of Virginia, S. W. 
Moore, president of the West Virginia State Horticul¬ 
tural Society, and others. 
In the Georgia State Senate July 12 the House resolu¬ 
tion requesting Georgia’s representatives in Congress to 
favor legislation denying the mails to the New York 
and New Orleans Cotton Exchanges was referred to Hie 
Agricultural Committee. The House resolution urging 
Congress to require (lie National Department of Agricul¬ 
ture to supply statistics as to stocks of cotton on hand 
in mills and factories was adopted by the Senate. An¬ 
other House resolution which was adopted called upon 
the Governor to get Luther Burbank, if possible, to in¬ 
clude cotton in his investigations of plant life. 
An outbreak of anthrax was recently reported near 
Middletown, N. Y., but it is believed that tiie State 
Department of Agriculture now has the disease under 
control. One man died from the disease, being infected 
by raw hides. 
THE PAYNE-ALDRICII TARIFF BILL,—Through 
Senator La Follette, the Bureau of Statistics of the De¬ 
partment of Commerce and Labor lias presented to Con¬ 
gress an analysis of the increases and decreases of the 
Payne-Aldrich tariff bill. Summarizing this analysis, Mr. 
La Follette says that, “according to the figures supplied 
by the bureau, the bill as passed by the Senate, upon 
the basis of tiie importations of 1907, leaves unchanged 
the duties upon imports of tiie value of $450,106,037, or 
64.65 per cent. Duties are Increased upon imports of 
the value of $149,716,619, or 21.51 per cent., while the 
decreases affect imports of the value of $96,369,019, or 
13.84 per cent. The average incrcs.se of the entire bill 
is 5.65 per cent.” As the bill passed the House, accord¬ 
ing to the estimates of Chairman Payne,” the Senator 
says, “the increases upon the basis of the importations of 
1906 affected imports valued at more than $98,000,000, 
while the decreases affected imports valued at less than 
$46,000,000. Unless the rates of the lull are greatly re¬ 
duced in conference, the bill should be vetoed, as in its 
present form it is a violation of the promise made to 
the people to generally reduce existing rates.” 
As a result of a conference held at the White House 
July 15 the tariff bill conferees will write into tiie tariff 
measure a provision authorizing the Secretary of the 
Treasury to issue bonds for tiie construction of the 
Panama Canal to an amount equivalent to the total 
cost of canal construction. Col. Goethals, the Chief 
Engineer of the Canal, has estimated that the limit of 
cost will be $397,000,000, and under the authority to 
be conferred on the Secretary of the Treasury bonds to 
that amount may lx> issued by the Secretary in his dis¬ 
cretion. The working balance of the Treasury is dwind¬ 
ling and a deficit is threatened. It was with this state of 
affairs in mind that the Ways and Means Committee in 
drafting the tariff bill inserted a provision authorizing 
the Secretary of the Treasury to issue bonds to the 
amount of $40,000,000. which amount when realized was 
to be paid into the general fund of the Treasury to take 
the place of tin eual amount paid for the property of 
tiie new Panama Canal Company under the canal con¬ 
struction act of June 28. 1902. 
OBITUARY.—Samuel William Johnson, professor emer¬ 
itus of agricultural chemistry at Yale, died at his home 
in New Haven July 21, aged 79 years. He was born 
in Kingsboro, Fulton county, N. Y.. July 3, 1830. In 
1855 he went to the Sheffield Scientific School, and for 
forty years was the leading agricultural chemist at 
Yale. He was a member of the first Connecticut Board 
of Agriculture, was the organizer of the Connecticut Agri¬ 
cultural Experiment Station in 1877 and its first director, 
which office he held for twenty-two consecutive years. 
He wrote many books, the best known of which, “How 
Crops Grow," being used extensively in England and 
America, and having been translated into German, 
Swedish, Italian. Japanese and Russian. He was a mem¬ 
ber of the governing board of the Sheffield Scientific 
School, was president of the American Chemical Society 
in 1878: a member of the National Academy of Sciences 
since 1866. and associate fellow of the American Acad¬ 
emy of Arts and Sciences, and one time president of the 
Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Ex¬ 
periment Stations. He is survived by bis wife aud one 
daughter. 
MILCH GOAT BREEDERS MEET. 
The first annual meeting of the Connecticut Milch Goat 
Keepers’ Association was held on July 5, at the home of 
one of its pioneer members, Milo N. Wooding, at North 
Haven. The attendance was small, owing chiefly to the 
scattered residences of the members, but, despising not 
the day of small things, the event was carried out with 
the same interest and enthusiasm as if a thousand had 
been present. The Wooding farm is one of about 30 
acres, situated near a hilltop, and presenting a com¬ 
manding view of tiie picturesque valley to the westward. 
The morning was spent in examining I lie farm, and its 
Guinea fowls and other poultry, and its small herd of 
native milch goats, about which the chief interest cen¬ 
tered. Mr. Wooding, several years ago, became interested 
in the milch goat as a producer of rich milk for domestic 
uses; and his family have grown attached to their minia¬ 
ture cows, which are affectionate creatures, and which 
are kept tethered to prevent their browsing in forbidden 
spots. At noon, the members partook of a generous colla¬ 
tion, supervised by Mrs. Wooding and her daughters, and 
the company was then entertained by a demonstration 
test of goats’ milk, made by the president of the society, 
George W. Smith, of Melrose, who explained to the audi¬ 
ence the technics of the Babcock test, and the particular 
uses of the several instruments employed in conducting it. 
The sample of milk analyzed was drawn on the spot by 
Mr. Wooding, from a goat. At the conclusion of t'-e test, 
Mr. Smith announced that he had never analyzed better 
milk: the percentage of fat present being nusitally large. 
The figures wore as follows: Milk fat. 6.4 per cent. ; 
solids not fat, 8.2 per cent : total solids. 14.63 per cent. 
Mr. Smith stated that goats’ milk is superior to cows’ 
milk, ordinarily, in content of fat and in percentage of 
total solids, and that where it is known and appreciated 
it is in great demand, being sold at the present time at 
10 cents a glass in the drug stores of Phoenix, Arizona, 
where consumptivevs especially seek its nourishing sus¬ 
tenance. The silly prejudice against goats, he said, will 
ultimately be overcome in this country, and the useful 
animals become as important a part of our live stock as 
they already are in Europe. 
Secretary Alfred Dixon, of West Hartford, reported 
that the society enters upon its second year with 29 mem¬ 
bers, residing in 15 States and territories, and that their 
personnel includes farmers, ladies, clerks, physicians, min¬ 
isters. merchants, and one court judge. One of the mem¬ 
bers, Herbert Spencer Greims. of New York City, has be¬ 
come a devoted milch goat fancier, and on his hilly 300- 
acre farm in Ridgefield, Conn., ho has lately installed, at 
very large expense, a herd of 22 Swiss and German goats, 
most of them of the noted Toggenburg breed, which in 
their native country sometimes yield as high as six or 
seven quarts of milk a day. The association has a free 
goat sale bureau, to facilitate the purchase and sale of 
milch goats; but the demand for the animals is so far 
Iteyond the sunnly that some are now on the waiting list 
who wish to nnrci’Hse. but cannot find the stock. A pure¬ 
bred Toggenburg doe, in lactation, is worth about $100 in 
this country. Alfred dixon. 
