STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 1 33 



instance, if you are starting an apple orchard this 'year, plant 

 three or four rows of strawberries between and keep the ground 

 worked up well. In that way you will get a return from your 

 land long before your apples will be in condition to pick. Then 

 again, a point that I want you to consider well is the matter of 

 shipping strawberries south. You can grow strawberries at 

 least two or three weeks later than we can in Boston. Here 

 is Nova Scotia shipping thousands of crates to Boston after our 

 fruit is gone and realizing prices that we never can get from 

 our own native fruit. Why can't Maine do this same thing? 

 Here is a country north of us that ought to grow the finest kind 

 of strawberries and ship them down to Boston and the Massa- 

 chusetts cities and realize a profit from them far greater than 

 you can from dairying, potato raising or any of those other hard 

 labor occupations. That is a question that Alaine ought to 

 consider well. I know you are up against the problem of 

 labor for picking that crop ; but if you were to take it in time, 

 plant and take care of your bed so you will produce only good 

 fruit, the question is very small, and you can ship those berries 

 and get them into the market in Boston a great deal quicker 

 than they do from the South, which takes anywhere from forty- 

 eight to sixty hours to get varieties from Norfolk, Va., into the 

 Boston market. You can get varieties from Maine into the 

 Boston markets in twelve hours and they will wholesale any- 

 where from fifteen to twenty cents a quart. It seems to me 

 that point ought to be strongly brought out. and some of this 

 land that is now lying idle, or being more or less farmed, would 

 produce that strawberry crop and supply our markets. 



Currants, gooseberries and those other small fruits can also 

 be grown in this country just as well. The idea of using cur- 

 rants is becoming more strong in our cities every year. They 

 are being used largely for preserving, I think, jelly making. It 

 seems to me an industry of that sort should be worked up on 

 the farms. I just happened to look in your report of last year 

 and I saw recommendations of home work for women on the 

 farm, among them jelly making and all that sort of thing. 

 Right here the small fruit comes in and fills a place that nothing 

 else can. I feel that the small fruit question is hardly known 

 here in New England as yet. We produce strawberries around 

 Boston by the acre in great quantities but we over-supply the 



