HOME-GROWN STRAWBERRIES. 185 



I am one of those who have full faith in the importance of 

 the culture of fruits as a branch of our husbandry, especially 

 in this transition period through which our agriculture is now 

 passing. Just as manufactures, here in New England, have 

 passed, in good degree, through their transition period, until 

 they have gained their high supremacy, during which they 

 have been gathered from every little streamlet and every 

 hamlet in New England into these great centres of manufact- 

 ure, so agriculture is passing through a transition stage here, 

 and we find ourselves obliged to relinquish to the great and 

 fertile West many of the staple crops of the farm. We 

 must, therefore, turn our attention to those crops which, from 

 our location and proximity to market, — the nature of the crops 

 themselves not allowing of distant transportation, — give us 

 high vantage-ground, compared with our Western competitors. 

 I claim that that is especially the case with the culture of 

 fruits ; not only of the small fruits, preeminently, but also of 

 the larger fruits, the products of our orchards ; and I say that 

 we should look to them for one large source of relief in the 

 present condition of New England agriculture. 



It has so often been said that Jersey is the place to raise 

 strawberries, and so on, that it has almost been admitted as a 

 foregone conclusion that we in Connecticut, or you in Massa- 

 chusetts, cannot compete with Jersey. But how is the fact? 

 I visited the strawberry plantations in Connecticut again and 

 again last summer, and my attention was called to the fact 

 that the amount and quality of their products vastly surpassed 

 any of the boasted fields of Jersey. I suppose the same 

 thing is true of the strawberry plantations of Massachusetts. 

 The thing has been done, is being done, every year, and can 

 be done continually. There is no need of your paying out, here 

 in Massachusetts, as you do, such enormous sums for the 

 miserable products of the Jersey and other Southern gardens 

 in the way of strawberries, just because they come a few days 

 before your better Massachusetts product. So with regard to 

 the whole line of small fruits. The raspberry can be cultivated 

 most successfully here, and every farmer can have, for the 

 supply of his table, and for market, a succession of this fruit 

 that will last, in its three or four leading varieties, every day 

 for a month. There is no ditficulty about it. I have accom- 



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