156 8TATK POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



raiher ilian garden c-mps, and they have cnltivatcc? after the manher 

 of farmers rather than as u;artleners eultivato. Moreover, many have 

 located remote from town, suhjectiug tliemselves to quite a tax in 

 transporting tiieir fruits to market and in transporMng their laborers 

 to and from their labor. Let the farmer stick to farm crops and 

 they wlio are fitted by nature, tastes and training for iiorticultur- 

 ists grow small fruits. This, I think, is the natural order of things,, 

 and to this 1 believe we shall be obliged to come. 



Can it be proved that growing the same quantities of fruits on 

 smalKr areas of land will reduce their cost? 1 think it can. Let us 

 first take strawberries, the fruit in which the grower now sinks the 

 most money. We will say that 200 bushels per acre is a possible 

 crop of strawberrie-s. I have known much larger crops grown, but 

 we will take 200 for our demonstration. I do not believe that the aver- 

 age yield, in the way they are generally grown, is over 50 bushels 

 per acre. Suppose that a grower of strawberries cultivates so as to 

 grow on one acre what he now grows on four, does any intelligent 

 horticulturist believe that the berries would cost so much per quart? 



To start with, the rent of three acres would be saved. At a low 

 estimate this would amount to $24 in the cost of 200 bushels. It 

 would neither require the same amount of manure nor labor to grow 

 200 bushels on one acre that it would on four acres — one-half of 

 each would be a liberal allowance. If 20 two- horse loads of barn- 

 3'ard manure to the acre is generally applied under the present S3'S- 

 tem, I fhink 40 loads would answer under the approved system, thufr 

 saving 40 loads, worth $40, in the 200 bushels. 



The cultivator of one acre would probably* plow deeper and pulverize 

 much finer, expending about as much labor in preparing the one acre 

 for planting as the farmer does in preparing four acres. Onh* one- 

 fourth the number of plants, however, would be required. If we 

 plant three feet by eighteen inches it would take 9,680 plants to set 

 one acre — three times the number, or 29,040, would be saved. At 

 $2.50 per thousand, these would amount to 872.60. In planting the 

 strawberries, I suppose that about one-half the time would be ex- 

 pended on the one acre that is ordinarily devoted on large plantations to 

 four acres, and about half the labor in cultivating, hoeing, weeding and 

 clipping runners. It is not practicable to make a ver}' close estimate 

 of the value of the labor saved, as different tracts of land differ so 

 much in the amount of labor required to keep them clean and mellow, 

 and the same grounds require so much more labor in a wet than in- a 



