4 
W. F. Allen’s Plant and Seed Catalogue, Salisbury, Md. 
CHESAPEAKE. —This new variety offered to 
the public for the first time in 
my I90G catalogue has now been distributed and fruit¬ 
ed over a large range of country and we hear nothing 
but praise for it everywhere. One prominent grower 
writes me thus : “You gave us the Glen Mary several 
years ago and now the Chesapeake. Being the intro¬ 
ducer of these two famous berries puts you in the lead 
of all the introducers of new strawberries in this coun¬ 
try.” The Chesapeake is a chance seedling and its 
parentage is not known. The plants are large and vig¬ 
orous ; no rust and no weakness of any kind. The 
foliage is thick and leathery, upright leaf stems with 
the leaves almost round. The fruit is borne on large 
steins, the great proportion of which stand up, holding 
the fruit from the ground. The Chesapeake bears 
more fruit on single stems than any variety I have 
ever grown. The blossoms are perfect, the fruit uni¬ 
formly largo, averaging even larger than Gandy, and 
as compared with Gandy is more productive, firmer 
and better quality, without the green tips which are 
often found in that variety. The Chesapeake colors 
all over at once, and the flavor of this berry ranks 
with the best, such as Wm. Belt, Brunette and others 
of that class. Perhaps the strongest argument that I 
could put up to prove my good opinion of the variety 
is the fact that I am planting this almost exclusively 
for fruit myself in preference to all the others, i have 
a bed of 26 acres of Chesapeake which I hope to fruit 
the coming season if not pressed so hard for plants 
that I have to go in it for that purpose, and I have 
just added ten acres more to this field, making thirty- 
six acres in one block containing not a plant except 
Chesapeake. The time of ripening i« practically the 
same as the Gandy, starting three or four days earlier. 
I use the Gandy as comparison, because it is univer¬ 
sally known. Like all other strawberry plants, to be 
at its best it should be planted in rich, springy land, 
but does remarkably well on any land that will grow 
strawberries of any kind. The Chesapeake is the easi¬ 
est variety to pick of any that I know of, and pickers 
can pick more of this than of any variety that I have 
handled, and where pickers are scarce this is a great 
advantage. Last year I sent out a good many letters 
of inquiry to parties who had fruited the Chesapeake 
in ©.udcr to find out the general sentimeat in reference 
to It. Many of these were printed last season, which 
will hardly be necessary to repeat them this year, but 
I can truly say that all the information that I get 
seems to be favorable, and we are now expecting a 
good demand for the. plants this season. We sold over 
one million of this variety alone last year. Everybody 
who has seen the berry, both growers and mer<dmnts 
who sell the fruit, are undivided in their good opinion 
of this berry. It is not a variety that sets an Im¬ 
mense quantity of fruit, but every blossom makes a 
berry, thereby not wasting its vitality in setting a 
large number of berries that can never be matured; 
the result is a good crop of berries that are all well 
developed and strictly fancy. In any market where 
quality is appreciated the Chesapeake will be at a pre¬ 
mium. Personally I consider it the very best late 
berry on the market, whether it is grown for home 
market, local market or distant shipment. This is 
about as strong as I can put it and is no stronger than 
the merits of the variety deserve. I shall not give a 
long, drawn-out write-up of the variety this season, as 
T consider the above as convincing of the good quali¬ 
ties of the Chesapeake as if I were to fill the entire 
book about it. We have a good stock of plants and 
will fill all orders as long as they last, although it 
would be 1 advisable not to wait too long in the season, 
as we are expecting the demand for this to be excep¬ 
tionally large. 
*> m 
OUR CUSTOMERS ARE OUR PRIMES, f 
King Co., Wash., March 23, 1909. T 
W. F. Allen, Salisbury, Md. J 
Dear Sir—Strawberry plants received all 
O. K. Thank you. Kind regards. 
S. B. VROOMAN. 
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I 
❖ 
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EXCELLENT ORDER. 
Bermuda. Nov. 15, 1909. 
W. F. Allen, Salisbury, Md. 
Dear Sir—I beg to acknowledge the safe re¬ 
ceipt of the strawberry plants which came to 
hand in excellent order. Please accept my best 
thanks. Yours faithfully, T. J. HARRIS. 
