618 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc, 



should bo taken to do the work with as little injui'}^ to the pistil as 

 possible as rou<>h I'luits often i-esuU as a neglect of pollinating or 

 from careless pollinating. 



PICKING AND PACKING 



'I'he lacking is done three times a week. Only the specimens 

 which ai-e nearly or fully colored are ])icke<l. The grading is done 

 on a bench made for that purpose. Two gi-ades are made and all 

 fruits which are included in the first grade must be smooth and not 

 below a cei-tain size. The second grado is made up of fruits too 

 small for seconds but not too small to be marketable and those that 

 are a little rough but not rough enough to make them unsightly. It 

 should be said in this connection that greenhouse-grown tomatoes 

 are much more liable to be rough than the same varieties grown in 

 the field. 



We pack in small baskets similar to those used by many south- 

 ern growers Aveighing out five pounds in each basket. These bas- 

 kets are packed in crates made to hold four baskets or twenty pounds. 

 This is a neat package but is adapted only to warm weather shipping. 



We seldom get more than |2.50 per crate nor less than 75 cents 

 and that only at the last of the season. Two pounds per square 

 foot of bench space is considered a good yield. The supply of 

 southern tomatoes on our markets governs the price which we are 

 able to get for the greenhouse stock to a considerable extent but 

 when the trade has once learned to know the difference in the 

 quality of the greenhouse grown and southern grown tomatoes, there 

 is little difificulty in disi)osing of it at quite an advance over the 

 southern stock. The markets could handle to advantage many times 

 the present output of greenhouse tomatoes. 



STEAWBEKRIES 



By J. W. KERR, Denton, Md. 



No other fruit plays so diversified and inconsistent a roll as this. 

 Under, even ordinary management, it is renumerative to the grower 

 and most acceptably increases his irevenues wholly independent 

 of the tariff. It presents itself at a season of the year when its re- 

 freshing acidity is an unfathomable joy. In communities where 

 grown on a large scale, it becomes the innocent disorganizer of the 

 household and a harassing family nightmare. Two cents per quart 

 for ])icking presents a temptation that mobilizes and leads to the 

 barracks hastily improvised for them all the house help, for miles 

 around, without limitations as to color, nationality or religion; nor 

 does it sto]» at robbing the housewife of her help, but all too fre- 

 qently, able bodied men hired by the year to work on the farm, 

 suddenly fail to answer the roll call of their employers, and hie 

 themselves with their wives and children to the berry fields. It is 

 quite natural, when house-hold customs and out-door interestes on 

 the farm both are so severely jolted, that the cause should be severe- 



