Success With Small Fruits | Page 3

even better results.
In many of the catalogues of to-day we find many of the fine old varieties spoken of as enfeebled and fallen from their first estate. This is why they decline in popular favor and pass into oblivion. Little wonder that these varieties have become enfeebled, when we remember how ninety-nine hundredths of the plants are propagated. I will briefly apply my theory to one of the oldest kinds still in existence--Wilson's Albany. If I should set out a bed of Wilson's this spring, I would eventually discover a plant that surpassed the others in vigor and productiveness--one that to a greater degree than the others exhibited the true characteristics of the variety. I should then clear away all the other plants near it and let this one plant propagate itself, until there were enough runners for another bed. From this a second selection of the best and most characteristic plants would be made and treated in like manner. It appears to me reasonable and in accordance with nature that, by this careful and continued selection, an old variety could be brought to a point of excellence far surpassing its pristine condition, and that the higher and better strain would become fixed and uniform, unless it was again treated with the neglect which formerly caused the deterioration. By this method of selection and careful propagation the primal vigor shown by the varieties which justly become popular may be but the starting-point on a career of well-doing that can scarcely be limited. Is it asked, "Why is not this done by plant-growers?" You, my dear reader, may be one of the reasons. You may be ready to expend even a dollar a plant for some untested and possibly valueless novelty, and yet be unwilling to give a dollar a hundred for the best standard variety in existence. If I had Wilsons propagated as I have described, and asked ten dollars a thousand for them, nine out of ten would write back that they could buy the variety for two dollars per thousand. So they could; and they, could also buy horses at ten dollars each, and no one could deny that they were horses. One of the chief incentives of nurserymen to send out novelties is that they may have some plants for sale on which they can make a profit. When the people are educated up to the point of paying for quality in plants and trees as they are in respect to livestock, there will be careful and capable men ready to supply the demand.
Beginning on page 349, the reader will find supplemental bits of varieties which have appeared to me worthy of mention at the present time. I may have erred in my selection of the newer candidates for favor, and have given some unwarranted impressions in regard to them. Let the reader remember the opinion of a veteran fruit-grower. "No true, accurate knowledge of a variety can be had," he said, "until it has been at least ten years in general cultivation."
I will now take my leave, in the hope that when I have something further to say, I shall not be unwelcome. E. P. R.
CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON, N. Y. _January 16,1886._

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
PRELIMINARY PARLEY
II. THE FRUIT GARDEN
III. SMALL FRUIT FARMING AND ITS PROFITS
IV. STRAWBERRIES: THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY
V. IDEAL STRAWBERRIES VERSUS THOSE OF THE FIELD AND MARKET
VI. CHOICE OF SOIL AND LOCATION
VII. PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL
VIII. PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE
IX. THE PREPARATION OF SOILS COMPARATIVELY UNFAVORABLE--CLAY, SAND, ETC
X. COMMERCIAL AND SPECIAL FERTILIZERS
XI. OBTAINING PLANTS AND IMPROVING OUR STOCK
XII. WHEN SHALL WE PLANT?
XIII. WHAT SHALL WE PLANT? VARIETIES, THEIR CHARACTER AND ADAPTATION TO SOILS
XIV. SETTING OUT PLANTS
XV. CULTIVATION
XVI. A SOUTHERN STRAWBERRY FARM, AND METHODS OF CULTURE IN THE SOUTH
XVII. FORCING STRAWBERRIES UNDER GLASS
XVIII. ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES--HYBRIDIZATION
XIX. RASPBERRIES--SPECIES, HISTORY, PROPAGATION, ETC
XX. RASPBERRIES--PRUNING--STAKING--MULCHING--WINTER PROTECTION, ETC
XXI. RASPBERRIES--VARIETIES OF THE FOREIGN AND NATIVE SPECIES
XXII. RUBUS OCCIDENTALS--BLACK-CAP AND PURPLE-CANE RASPBERRIES
XXIII. THE RASPBERRIES OF THE FUTURE
XXIV. BLACKBERRIES--VARIETIES, CULTIVATION, ETC.
XXV. CURRANTS--CHOICE OF SOIL, CULTIVATION, PRUNING, ETC.
XXVI. CURRANTS, CONTINUED--PROPAGATION, VARIETIES
XXVII. GOOSEBERRIES
XXVIII. DISEASES AND INSECT ENEMIES OF SMALL FRUITS
XXIX. PICKING AND MARKETING
XXX. IRRIGATION
XXXI. SUGGESTIVE EXPERIENCES FROM WIDELY SEPARATED LOCALITIES
XXXII. A FEW RULES AND MAXIMS
XXXIII. VARIETIES OF STRAWBERRIES
XXXIV. VARIETIES OF OTHER SMALL FRUITS
XXXV. CLOSING WORDS
APPENDIX
INDEX
CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY PARLEY
In the ages that were somewhat shadowed, to say the least, when Nature indulged her own wild moods in man and the world he trampled on rather than cultivated, there was a class who in their dreams and futile efforts became the unconscious prophets of our own time--the Alchemists. For centuries they believed they could transmute base metals into gold and silver. Modern knowledge enables us to work changes more beneficial than the alchemist ever dreamed of; and it shall be my aim to make one of these secrets as open as the sunlight in the fields and gardens wherein