For raspberries, the Doolittle and the Mammoth Cluster have done nicely among the black-caps. The Gregg is also highly recommended by those who have tried it. I have not tried it a sufficient time to tell what it will do with me. The Philadelphia is a standard among the reds, and justly so. After two or three years’ trial I think very highly of the Cuthbert, although with me it is not as hardy as the Philadelphia. In fact, they all do better for being covered in winter.
Blackberries. For this portion of the State I know of nothing that I believe would give better satisfaction than Stone’s Hardy.
Among currants, the Red and White Dutch are still the standards.
The Concord grape is yet among grapes about what the Wilson is among strawberries—the standard for the million. The Worden, a seedling of the Concord, is very promising, and may yet prove to be a strong competitor in the race. The Delaware does splendidly in the Fox River Valley, but is not as reliable in all parts of the State as the above-named varieties.
I have tried to recommend nothing but what will do well with good fair cultivation upon any good soil. Yet you will often be annoyed in selecting seed, from the fact that the same seed is sent out by different seedsmen under different names. For instance, I have had early peas sent to me under different names and by different seedsmen and all planted on the same day, side by side, all cared for precisely alike, and all alike claiming to be remarkably early and prolific as well as excellent in quality, and yet every one of them precisely like the old extra early Dan O’Rourke that I used to grow, I do not know how many years ago.
The American Wonder is the only one of the new varieties that I have tried in many years that really seems to be an acquisition to our list. It is a dwarf about second early, and with me a good bearer, and of excellent quality. I mention this to show the farmer that as a rule it is better for him to rely upon the old standard list, until some grower with whom he is acquainted has fairly tested the new variety, and ascertained whether or not they are worthy of cultivation, and some good common sense are all that is needed to insure a good farmers garden. In twenty-five years I have failed but once to harvest at least a paying crop of strawberries, and most of the time they have been both large and profitable. During that time I have failed once to have a corn crop, and have a number of times failed to have a paying crop of potatoes; in fact, I have failed oftener with my potatoes than with any other of the long list of crops that I attempt to grow. Yet if I should say to the farmers of this audience that they did not know how to grow a crop of potatoes, they would consider themselves insulted, though I presume that not one of them has had complete success with them for any long series of years.
Peas and onions should be put in as early as the land is in good condition to work in the spring. If the ground freezes hard soon after they are sprouted it will not injure them. Parsnips, beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, and salsify will all bear a little frost after they come up, but not much.
Corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, vines of all kinds, require a warm soil and will do their best in no other.
A place for the wife and children’s flowers should not be forgotten or neglected. Give them a place, furnish help to prepare and care for it, and do not complain about the little time and expense it takes, either. Probably you will neither eat nor sell the flowers, but they will pay you better than a few extra bushels of wheat would. We are apt to hear complaints at our conventions that the young men will persist in leaving their farm home and seeking a new one in some of the towns or cities. Well, when I am traveling in our own and in other States and see so many desolate, dreary places that are called farmhouses—no trees, no shrubbery, no fruit, no flowers, no garden, in fact, nothing but a shell of a house, and some land, and it is fair to suppose that it is about as cheerless inside the house as it is dreary outside of it, I often wonder how, or why, any bright, active, wide-awake young man can stay there one day after he is at liberty to leave.
Gentlemen, I know that there are many beautiful exceptions to the above described homes, and that they are yearly becoming more numerous. If the exceptions could become the universal rule, what a glorious Northwest we should have! Presidents of State agricultural societies would not have to warn their friends against attempting to get through the tangled mass of weeds called the garden. The man who has been to college would no longer fret because his vines could not grow. The President of the State Dairymen’s Association would no longer buy cabbage plants or cabbage. Neither would he be compelled to order out his team and mow his garden before his conscience would allow him to teach others how to farm.