Small Fruit in the Family. 39 



SMALL FRUITS IX THE FAMILY — AND HOW TO HAVE THEM. 



BY SYLVESTER JOHNSON, OF INDIANA. 



One of the best farmers I ever knew, and his home now rises above the 

 horizon of my memorj', owned a farm, originally both rough and rocky, but 

 which, by its owner's skill and industry, was made as smooth and beautiful 

 as a prairie. Said he to me once, " I have packed sods to till up hollows and 

 dug out rocks to be hauled away till I arii old long before my time ; but you 

 never can imagine how this ground looked when I began." He had the 

 cleanest barn-yard, the fattest pigs, the best bred flocks of sheep, the happiest 

 dumb brutes, the most plethoric barns, the strongest fences, the best work- 

 ing farm gates, with the neatest latches— well, everything was as nearly in 

 perfect order as untiring watchfulness could attain. In a county where 

 forty bushels of corn to the acre would be a yield to boast of, he never got 

 less than seventy-tive, and of hay two and a half or three tons per acre were 

 but an average, while most of his neighbors were lucky if they obtained one- 

 half that amount. A few- beets onions, cabbages, a little lettuce and sweet 

 corn, and a small patch of small potatoes, all indifferently attended, made up 

 the kitchen garden. The table set with potatoes and fried ham, the latter 

 always very salt, seemed pretty dry and uninviting to a sweet-toothed youth 

 fond of juice and s-\veetening. Yet this man and his family were as fond of 

 fruit luxuries as any ever were, as was proved by the jealous guard they kept 

 over a few straggling clumps of wild raspberries and blackberries which his 

 scythe had thoughtfully spared along some inaccessible corners of the fence 

 when the fruit was on them. The little crop of luxuries was husbanded dur- 

 ing its brief period, and the evening tea table was garnished, for a time, with 

 a hint of what nature, if a little encouraged, was willing and waiting to do. 

 It is true there were a few red currants away off' in the back yard, because 

 somebody, at some time away back in the past, had set the example of toler- 

 ating this single variety of small fruit among civilized products. But the 

 idea of setting out a strawberry plant, or any well known fruit-bearing plants, 

 never entered any of our stupid heads in that day. When the season for 

 wild strawberries came, we would tramp for miles to find the scarlet beds 

 and lug home in triumph the baskets of fragrant and delicious fruit when 

 the " year " was a good one. So of raspberries, blackberries, and even wild 

 cherries. It would not be easj' to exaggerate the high estimate every- 

 body placed upon all these luxuries in their season. But the season was 

 short, the supply uncertain, and the difficulty of obtaining the fruit great. 

 Nature, unassisted, is apt to be capricious, and her hands were sometimes 

 lavish and sometimes miserly. No way of prolonging the brief pleasure was 

 thought of. The convenient fruit-can, full, neither adorned the store room 

 shelves, nor, empty, disfigured the back yards. Drying, cooking into rich 

 preserves were the only arts of saving for future use. And these were but 

 sparingly brought into requisition for the small wild fruits. The fact is. 



