Our Fruits. 33 



two cents per quart for picking strawberries, three for raspberries, and one 

 or one and one-half for blackberries; the larger the patch the more choice 

 can be had of pickers and at less price. I have had blackberries picked at 

 one cent a quart in lots of over 20,000 quarts in a day, while others in the 

 vicinity with small patches were paying one and one-half cents per quart for 

 picking a few hundred quarts. Although we would prefer the Southern 

 growers would not crowd our markets, we do not wish to forego the privil- 

 ege of shipping our berries and fruits North if price in the markets there 

 warrant us in that extra expense. 



With our tree fruits, after the orchard is sufficiently old and large enough 

 to bear, I have found, if not cultivated, will require more fertilizer of some 

 kind to keep up a good, healthy annual growth than is required with culti- 

 vation, unless the plan of pasturing with hogs or sheep is resorted to, and 

 which I consider an excellent method. I have been practicing for the past 

 two or more seasons spraying the trees once or twice soon after the blossoms 

 fall ; have used a mixture of one-half to three-quarters of a pound of Paris 

 green to one hundred gallons of water, and consider the spraying has been 

 beneficial to the fruit crop. The application has not been very expensive. 

 I have used a cask holding about one hundred gallons on a wagon, with a 

 boy to drive the team, one to direct the spray, and a man to work the force 

 pump. 



Our apples and pears are nearly all marketed in baskets, costing from |6 

 to $40 per hundred, and holding from three-eighths to five-eighths of a 

 bushel ; if the fruit is very scarce or of tine quality it will pay to use the 

 smaller packages. The baskets nest together, and in returning them they 

 are much lighter and less cumbersome than boxes. We begin to market 

 the fruit early in July, and have a succession to ripen until late autumn. 



In diverting the use of land to fruits that formerly produced grain and 

 hay caused me to have a surplus barn, not needed for those things, moved 

 to a location by the side of which, in winter, is an ice pond. I had the 

 building lined and filled in with sawdust twenty to twenty-four inches thick 

 on the inside, and overhead, about six feet from the ground, strong wooden 

 timbers were put across, on which, by the aid of horse power in cutting and 

 hoisting, from one hundred to one hundred and fifty tons of ice were stored 

 — under which is a room for storage, which has been found very convenient 

 for keeping berries a few days, enabling me to regulate my pickings more 

 satisfactorily to meet the markets on days most desirable. Later on in the 

 season, as apples and pears ripen and the market is overstocked with all 

 kinds of fruit, it was found very convenient. At one time the past summer 

 I had over 3,500 baskets of that fruit waiting for an advance in the market. 

 I have known the jjrice of Maiden's Blush apples to double or triple in as 

 many weeks : Orange Pippin, too, has proved valuable to store for longer or 

 shorter time. 



With pears there is nothing better for cold storage than the Bartlett. It is 

 one that is justly popular in the markets and has been very largely planted 



