SOCIETY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 217 



during the last three vears? How much can they make when their 

 berries are sold on the Chicago market for five or six cents per box. 

 after i^aying three-fourths of one cent per box for boxes and crates, 

 two cents per box for picking, express charges and commission? 

 And when they bring more it is when they have but few to sell. It 

 seems to me this is all wrong. I believe the grower should realize 

 on an average, the season through, ten cents per box. This would 

 probably net themfive cents per box. 



Not much, I assure you. How can this result be obtained? I 

 should say, grow less, that the market may not be glutted. Grow 

 early and late varieties, and, if needs be, keep some back by covering 

 and leaving covered as long as possible. Grow only those that stand 

 up well in the boxes. This may drive you back to the old, despised, 

 Wilson's Albany seedling. A berry that, in my estimation, has no 

 value but its shipping quality. I pity those who would have them 

 to eat; but, then, I pity those who eat only shipped berries of any 

 kind. What do they know about the luscious flavor of home-grown 

 fruits of any kind? This may be what Gray (not our own D. H. 

 Gray) had reference to when he said, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis 

 folly to be wise.'' But may the good Lord deliver us from that par- 

 ticular strain of ignorance. 



Still, it may be possible that even those poor souls may have 

 tastes so trained as to distinguish between the Wilson and better 

 sorts, but I doubt it, for I have heard so many say, "Oh, a straw- 

 berry is a strawberry. No difference." But you watch them when 

 they buy a box of berries, they invariably make a stagger at selec- 

 tion, but always go for the largest, forgetting that, as a rule, the 

 best goods are sold in the smallest packages. And either in vegeta- 

 bles or fruits, size is had at the expense of quality. 



Let us then endeavor to send them their berries by the nearest 

 and most expeditious routes, that they may have a little idea of fresh 

 fruit. 



With all the tooting of horns, with all the photographs and 

 chromos, all the wasting of j)rinter's ink during the last twenty-five 

 or thirty years, I believe, with the exception of the Crescent Seed- 

 ling, we have nothing to compare with the Wilson's Albany for 

 shipping long distances. This is not pleasant to think of, but 'tis 

 too true. What then shall we do? Go back a quarter of a century 

 and take the Wilson, and be content therewith, as are the Michi- 

 ganders, or grow less and ship direct to points of consumption? 



I have often wondered, when seeing strawberries on sale at 

 Galesburg, with the name of some Cobden or Centralia fruit-grower 

 stamped upon the case, and followed by the name of some commis- 

 sion n)an of Chicago, why they could not have been shipped across 

 the country, reaching the consumers in a few hours, instead of going 

 two or three times as far around to Chicago, there to be hustled from 

 the express car to the commission house, to lay there over a day, and 



