5C BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Tlie climate of Maine is not suitable for the cultivation of all of 

 the smaller fruits, our season being too short for the best varieties 

 of grapes to ripen, and our winters too severe to secure a crop of 

 the finest blackberries oftener than one year in three. But with 

 strawberries, although they winter kill sometimes, we can be fairh' 

 successful : and such is its popularity as a table dessert that it has 

 become almost indispensable, and the culture and sale of the 

 strawberry in this countr}' has become an immense business. 

 Thousands of acres are devoted to their production. Factories 

 are erected for the purpose of making crates and baskets in 

 wliich to transport them, and during the berry season the}' form 

 an important part of the freight on our railroad and steam- 

 boat lines all over the country. We cannot all of us attend 

 to the cultivation of strawberries, for although the demand has 

 exceeded the supply and will, I think in the future, some of us must 

 attend to the other branches of agriculture — dairying, stock hus- 

 bandry, fruit growing, &c. If we are not within the reach of a good 

 market the business would hardly pa}', for it is a crop that will not 

 keep. If not disposed of within two or three da3^s after ripe, it 

 becomes a total loss. But we can suppl}' our home markets at least. 

 Our cities and large towns are bound to have the berries, and we 

 might as well suppl}' them as to have our fruit dealers purchase them 

 from out of the State. 



One reason wh\' the inhabitants of some of our smaller towns do 

 DOt eat more strawberries is because they cannot get them. Many 

 people have a small plot for their own use, but the public in general 

 have no means of getting a suppl}'. It used to be considered a re- 

 markable piece of skill, management and good luck to grow a good 

 bed of strawberries ; but now that idea is done away with. Any 

 person of common intelligence, having a good piece of land, who 

 will set the plants properl}' and wield the hoe quite frequentl}' through 

 the growing season, will have no trouble in growing a crop. A half 

 acre of land, well taken care of, will yield fitt}' bushels — IGOO quarts. 

 These, at ten cents per quart, would be one hundred and sixty dol- 

 lars ; this is not a largie yield, or a large price for the berries, but 

 how much more land and what a pile of vegetables it would take to 

 realize that amount of money ! The fancy prices for the bulk of the 

 crop have gone by. People find it is not difficult to grow them, and 

 there is more competition. And is it not so with all other farm 

 crops ? We cannot now get one dollar per bushel for potatoes, or 



