1911. 
1047 - 
SEEDS AND PLANTS IN COURT. 
A Copyright for Fruit. 
The daily press recently stated that the Buckbee 
Company, of Illinois, had brought suit for $100,000 
against the R. M. Kellogg Co. over a new strawberry 
variety. We wrote both parties for information. 
The Buckbee people have not yet replied. The at¬ 
torneys for the R. M. Kellogg Company have given 
us a statement of the facts in the case from the 
standpoint of their client. They claim that Mr. Geo. 
W. Davis, of Indiana, originated a strawberry of 
merit. Mr. Davis arranged with the Kellogg Com¬ 
pany to test this variety, which has been named the 
Helen Davis. The Kellogg Company were well 
pleased with the behavior of the plants, and in the 
Spring of 1909 they set out all the runners from the 
original hundred plants, and did the same also in 
1910. It is claimed that a contract was made be¬ 
tween Mr. Davis and the Kellogg Company for the 
exclusive sale of the Helen Davis strawberry for 
the first year after its formal introduction. The 
Kellogg Company, it is claimed, printed in its cata¬ 
logue two pages of matter about this strawberry, 
with a picture. They claim that shortly after this 
book was distributed H. W. Buckbee, of Illinois, 
issued a catalogue containing the exact reproduction 
of the picture issued in the Kellogg book, and also 
an exact copy of the printed matter. 
In February, 1911, the Kellogg Com¬ 
pany sued Buckbee and secured a pre¬ 
liminary injunction restraining the 
Buckbee concern from further circulat¬ 
ing the book containing this picture, 
which was classed as a copyright be¬ 
longing to Kellogg. It is stated that a 
circular letter was sent to some of 
Kellogg’s customers, advising them of 
this injunction and stating that Buck¬ 
bee did not have the genuine Helen 
Davis plants and that no one was 
authorized to sell them except the 
Kellogg Company. While testimony in 
this copyright case was being taken a 
suit was brought by Buckbee against 
the Kellogg Company for $100,000 
damages. It is assumed that this ac¬ 
tion was based upon the statement 
made in the circular above mentioned. 
These are the facts so far as we have 
been able to get them. The case is an 
interesting one, as this matter of the 
value of a copyright or trade-mark for 
fruit is often brought up by our 
readers. 
Guarantee of a Seed Dealer. 
In a case recently decided on appeal 
to the Supreme Court of Iowa, a seed 
dealer’s claim as to the “non-guarantee 
clause” is confirmed, the judge decid¬ 
ing that the evidence was conclusive 
that a general custom of selling seeds 
without guarantee prevailed in the seed 
trade, and that, in consequence, the sale 
of seed in question was presumed to 
have been negotiated with reference to 
such general custom, and rendering a 
verdict accordingly. The Younkerman 
Seed Co., of Council Bluffs, la., was 
made a party defendant to a suit 
THE RURAb NEW-YORKER 
is only an interesting experiment, quite easy for an 
expert grafter to make and popular with students at 
agricultural schools. The plant here pictured was 
produced at the Cornell Agricultural College. 
This interesting experiment is sometimes used to 
promote a seed fake. Now and then some fellow 
turns up at a fair or goes through the country with a 
plant of this sort. There can be no getting around 
the fact that tomato and potato are both growing 
naturally on this plant, and the seed fraud offers to 
sell seeds which will grow and produce just the same 
thing. These seeds are ordinary tomato seeds, but 
he often gets 50 cents each for them. Of course they 
will produce tomato vines and nothing else, but there 
is a plant with potatoes on it. What is more, there 
is an orator with a flood of “guff” on tap that would 
convince a wooden table. He has it all pictured, 
showing how you can grow 500 bushels of potatoes 
under ground and 500 or more bushels of tomatoes 
on top. It is one of the most striking fakes that ever 
took the road, because many men are satisfied when 
they actually see a thing with their own eyes. It is a 
“graft” in both ways. 
NEW ENGLAND FRUIT FARM. 
I recently visited the orchard of Mr. A. A. Mar¬ 
shall, located on the hills above Fitchburg, Mass. 
Leaving the city of Fitchburg the road to the farm 
Intosh, Wealthy and Baldwin.^ There is also a nice 
block interplanted with Sutton, and besides there are 
a few hundred Gravensteins. Up to the present time 
the great business variety has been McIntosh. Whole 
blocks of this variety three and four years old aver¬ 
age 50 to 100 perfect fruits each, with trees five and 
six years averaging a barrel apiece. This variety 
on Mr. Marshall’s hills, as on many other New Eng¬ 
land farms where I have studied it, is most as¬ 
suredly a great business apple and a money getter 
from the start. Wealthy comes next in importance 
as a money getter just now, and trees from three 
years old to six are carrying fine crops of this large 
and handsome fruit. Many Baldwin trees from four 
to six years are also carrying a fair crop, but as we 
would expect, the fruit distribution in this variety is 
rot nearly so general at this early age as with the 
two above named kinds. The block of Sutton are 
all fine trees growing in their characteristic pear- 
tree-like form, but so far they have not borne much. 
All fruits were well up to the standard and over in 
size while color and freedom from blemish are all 
that could be desired. 
Mr. Marshall sprays four or five times during the 
season, using the paste lead-arsenate and commercial 
lime-sulphur. He believes the formula often recom¬ 
mended, one and a half gallons to 50, is much stronger 
than needed, has had some russeting at this strength. 
and has now cut it down to one to 100. 
Seven or eight years ago Mr. Marshall 
states these hill slopes now growing up 
into young orchards were covered with 
rocky bowlders and with wild growth 
and were not worth more than $5 an 
acre. It has been a great expense to 
clear them up, plant and take care of 
the trees, but to-day each acre is worth 
at least $200, and is yearly growing 
more valuable. Mr. Marshall and his 
son, who is also a great worker and 
an enthusiastic apple man, have at this 
time an orchard, the product of their 
own thought and labor, of which they 
can well be proud. One cannot go over 
the place without the constantly recur¬ 
ring impression that here every opera¬ 
tion is planned and followed in all its 
details witli the utmost care; that each 
tree of the 5,000 trees is cared for as 
an individual, but that one real system 
of management has been adopted for 
all, and that this is being carried out 
exactly. The writer has only criticism 
which he would possibly make if he 
might be allowed to do so. It is his 
opinion as the trees grow larger the 
five-foot hoed-out circles with grass 
mulch will not prove satisfactory, and 
some form of orchard cultivation will 
be found necessary for greatest profits. 
N. H. Agl. College. w. h. wolff. 
A TOMATO PLANT GRAFTED ON POTATO. Fig. 421 
brought by a firm of planters against a canning com¬ 
pany for damages incident to the furnishing of cer¬ 
tain pumpkin seed for growing under contract, which 
seed, it was claimed, turned out to be not in accord 
with its package labels. The crop was properly 
cared for, but proved to be Connecticut Pie pumpkins 
with a few squash. These being unfit for canning 
purposes, the canning company refused to receive 
them and plaintiff realized therefrom but $29.75. Had 
the seed been true to name the several witnesses es¬ 
timated that from 16 to 25 tons of pumpkins per 
acre would have been produced, and plaintiff de¬ 
manded judgment against the canning company for 
what they would have realized from the crop had the 
seed been true to name, less the proceeds of the crop 
actually raised. The grower was to receive $4 a ton 
from the canning factory which purchased the seed 
for the grower. 
TOMATO GRAFTED ON POTATO. 
At Fig. 421 is the photograph of a tomato slip 
grafted on a potato stalk. The black arrow shows 
where the graft was made. The union was success¬ 
ful and the plant grew as shown—with a bunch of 
potatoes on the roots and tomatoes growing on the 
vines. Of course there was not a large crop of either, 
and there was no change in the character of either 
crop. This process would not pay commercially—it 
leads up hill for about three miles, and soon brings 
us to what is probably the most magnificent panorama 
of young apple orchards in New England. The town¬ 
ship road divides the farm, and the residence and 
fine new barn are on opposite sides of this thorough¬ 
fare. From this eminence the fields of young trees 
siope away and spread out in every direction. There 
are about 5,000 young trees, ranging in ages from 
one to seven years, in rows absolutely straight, all 
trees 22 l / 2 feet apart, and nearly every tree in a block 
symmetrical and uniform in size. Contrary to the 
generally accepted practice of most of our better fruit 
glowers, Mr. Marshall does not practice clean cul¬ 
ture with cover crop, but plows his land thoroughly 
before planting only, cultivates for the first season, 
then sows down to permanent grass sod, and really 
practices a thorough grass mulch, mowing the grass 
three or four times each season, and leaving it right 
where it falls. There is a five-foot circle kept hoed 
out and weedless about each tree, but this Mr. Mar¬ 
shall explains is only as a protection to the trees 
against a possible grass fire. An application of ground 
bone and potash salts is given to each tree each 
Spring, the chemicals being distributed away out and 
beyond the spread of the branches. From one and a 
half to six pounds of the mixture is the ration now 
used, according to the age and size of the trees. 
There are three principal varieties grown—Mc- 
“HALEBERTA” PEACH. 
Noticing a letter from Mr. J. H. 
Hale, of Connecticut, on page 979, I am 
reminded of a correspondence with him 
two years ago in regard to his Million 
Dollar peach. At that time he sent me a 
peach of this variety, calling my atten¬ 
tion to its qualities, and requesting me 
to suggest a name. I suggested Hale- 
berta, and in his reply he stated that he had thought 
of giving it that name. From modesty he may have 
sought another and fixed on Million Dollar. If the 
peach is to have a successful future, and I think it 
will, would not Haleberta be better than Million Dol¬ 
lar? Five or ten years from now, a single word as 
a name would be preferable to two, in market reports, 
in billing and in the many other ways in which the 
name will be used. Please give your views in your 
paper on this point. The peach Mr. Hale sent me 
was shown to several peach growers, and was kept 
in my office 10 days before it commenced to decay, 
arid this started from a bruise received before it 
reached me. In color, size and shipping qualities it 
is unsurpassed by any other peach known to me. 
Having been a shipper of peaches since the first com¬ 
mercial product of Early Crawfords in western New 
York, I have looked with great interest for the re¬ 
sult of Mr. Hale’s experiment in developing his Hale¬ 
berta peach. s. c. bowen. 
Orleans Co., N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—We think “Haleberta” preferable to Mil¬ 
lion Dollar and hope the change will be made unless 
a better name is suggested. It is never safe to pre¬ 
dict the commercial future of a new fruit, but this 
peach certainly seems to possess the stuff that suc¬ 
cess is made of. _ 
It seems to be settled that an iron roof on a poultry 
house is a mistake. 
