Learn to tell a variety by a careful examination of the plant at different times during the season.  Fix the general color of the leaf in your mind, its shape and size.  Notice whether the fruit stems are long or short, whether the blossoms are above the leaves, in plain sight, or are hidden below.  Are there many fruit buds to the stalk, or but few?  Are the blossoms pistillate or staminate?  Are the petals large or small?  Are the stamens long or short?  Are the anthers well or poorly formed?  They should be plump and well filled before they are ready to open.

Is the receptacle on which the pistils sit well formed and capable of being developed into a perfect berry, or do they look ungainly in shape?  Are the petals pure white or slightly crimson?  Are there many runners, or few, or none?  Do the new runners bear blossoms and fruit?  If so, when do they commence to bud and bloom?  When do the berries begin to ripen?  Notice the size and shape of the fruit, also the color.  You can tell much from the taste of the berry.  No two varieties taste exactly alike.  Some are real sweet and some kinds real sour.  Then there are all grades between.

The perfume, or fragrance, of the fruit of the common strawberry when fully ripened under proper conditions of sunlight and moisture has long been esteemed and highly appreciated by mankind in general, and in this respect the fall-bearing strawberry varies greatly.  The most of the varieties excel all common kinds as to perfume and that delicate strawberry flavor which nearly everybody loves so well.  Once in a while a musk-scented variety is developed, like the Milo on our grounds, which as yet has never been sent out.  By paying close attention to these things you can soon learn to distinguish many varieties at any time during the growing season.

In 1898 Mr. Cooper found his seedling which he called the Pan American.  From that small beginning there are now many varieties, perhaps thousands, that excel the parent plant, and perhaps a hundred varieties of great value.  Some varieties have very superior merit.  I will mention a few:  Progressive, Peerless, Advance, Danville, Forward, Prince, Will, Milo, Nathaniel, 480, and there are others which might be mentioned.  Good reports have reached me of kinds produced at your Horticultural Experiment farm by Prof.  Haralson, but I have never tried them.  My private opinion is that several kinds I have not mentioned will very soon take a back seat, as the saying is.  The best varieties are bound to come to the front.

The best advertisement one can have is the ability to ship thousands of quarts during the whole autumn.  This season we shipped 22,565 quarts, mostly sold in pint boxes.  They netted us from 12-1/2 to 18 cents per pint.  At home we kept them on the market during the whole season at 15 cents per quart.  We lost as many as 5,000 quarts by violent storms during the season.  It was a fair season for growing plants, but there was too much water to grow the best of fruit.