MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 311 



distances, I do not look to the large cities for a market, but hant up 

 a good lively grocer ia each town where I wish to ship, and treat him 

 so nicely and give him such nice fruit that once a customer, always a 

 customer, will be the rule and not the exception. 



The commercial grower must not only work with his hands, but 

 must work with his brain. Not a single day in the year can pass the 

 successful berry-grower without his giving the business thought and 

 study. He must have all his plans laid and a definite line of action to 

 pursue long before the time comes to do the work. 



The principal requisites for commercial strawberry-growing are 

 money, brains, spunk, gumption, perseverance, a genuine love for the 

 business outside of the money question, and an indomitable will that 

 never knows defeat, a good, stiff backbone and an honest heart. 



What Plums Will it Pay to Grow ? 



Jacob Faith, Montevallo, Mo. 



Some of our members may remember at our State meeting at 

 West Plains, in discussing the plum, that I said I was alarmed at hav- 

 ing plum-trees in my apple orchard ; but now I am satisfied that plum- 

 trees are profitable in an apple orchard, both for fruit and insect 

 destroyers. I have noticed my apples that grow within 150 feet of 

 the plum-trees are most free from worms. 



Why farmers and hog-raisers do not grow plums for their hogs I 

 cannot understand, when one acre of plums produces more hog feed 

 than three acres of corn, and with less than one-half the labor. They 

 ripen at a time when corn is scarce and when hogs need a change of 

 food. That plums will produce from the seed the same as the parent 

 tree is a mistake, for I have tested over 100 of them and not one was 

 like the parent tree. 



About 17 years ago I planted 60 wild plum-trees; 40 of them were 

 budded on seedling peach-trees and 20 of them were grafted on seed- 

 ling peach-roots. The budded trees commenced dying at six years old 

 and now they are all dead. The 20 grafted trees soon grew on their 

 own roots, and about half of them are yet alive and healthy. 



A plum-tree thus grafted will throw out sprouts, and I prefer such 

 sprouts to grafted or budded trees. Also with the Early Richmond 

 cherry the same is true. The sprouts are worth more than any buds 

 or grafts. It is true that a plum grafted upon peach-root will begin to 

 bear earlier ; but the sprouts will make the longest-lived and healthiest 

 trees. 



