
Report oF ACTING HorTICULTURIST. 
The work of this department for this year consisted of varietal 
tests of small fruits, continued work on the cross pollination of 
strawberries, tests of commercial fertilizers on small fruits, spray- 
ing with fungicides for fungoid diseases of small fruits, tests of the 
newly introduced varieties of potatoes, tests of commercial fer- 
tilizers on potatoes, spraying with fungicides for the potato blight, 
tests of vegetable novelties of late introduction, tests of commer- 
cial fertilizers on the yield of beans, tests of fertilizers on forced 
tomatoes, and minor matters of more or less value. | 
The policy of this department has been to test all the promis- 
ing new fruits produced as soon as possible after they have been 
offered on the market, or before, if possible, and although it is 
claimed by some that the testing of varieties of fruits by the 
Experiment Station is of purely mechanical nature, and does not 
come strictly under the head of Station work, this Station takes _ 
the ground that it is the province of the Station to stand between 
the originator or introducer and the public, and as far as possible 
protect and aid the purchaser in his efforts to procure only the 
varieties of new fruits that equal or excel the well-known old 
varieties, and the prediction is ventured that the time is near 
when the public will demand a certificate of merit from the 
Experiment Stations before they will buy new varieties of fruits, 
however much they may be lauded by those interested in the sale 
of them. That it will be to the advantage of the originator and 
introducer no one can doubt, as the wide range of country covered 
by the Experiment Stations, their facilities for testing and com- 
paring, and the honest, unprejudiced opinions formed by the 
persons in charge would give any fruit of merit a prestige more 
valuable than any amount of money spent in colored plates and 
puffing. One case to the point is a new strawberry, the originator 
of which quietly sent plants to the various Experiment Stations. 


