426 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



• 



If any one asks here to-day the question, ''do small fruits pay?" I answer 

 that where a man has the right qualities for the business it will pay reason- 

 ably well on the average. But let no one commence the business hastily. 

 Let him study well the market, let him be sure that he is willing both to 

 labor and to wait, and then let him begin in a small way and grow into a 

 large business if he can. 



What I have said on this point was said partly to point out the difficulties 

 attending the successful growing of small fruits, and now I wish to ask if, 

 under these circumstances, it is strange that farmers fail so generally in 

 their efforts to provide themselves with the berries, currants and grapes 

 which they desire for family use? It is useless to say that the farmer might 

 do so and so. The farmer is a man of many duties. Each field, each ani- 

 mal, each building, fence, and drain needs its proper share of attention. 

 Especially in spring and summer, there seems to be no rest for the farmer's 

 hand or brain. Chores morning, noon and night, with the long hours of 

 field work, leave no leisure for anything but sleep, and hardly that. Under 

 these circumstances what opportunity is there for the care and attention 

 which a small fruit garden so constantly demands? For small fruits are 

 jealous things. Almost every day, certainly every week, they call for atten- 

 tion, and for every time of neglect they hold back some portion of the wished 

 for harvest. The newly set strawberry plant displays its beautiful blossom 

 only to have it removed, the slender runner reaches out only to see if you are 

 ready with your shears or hoe. The drouth of summer, the aggressive weeds, 

 the cold of winter and the late spring frosts, all call for intelligent and rapid 

 action. So the raspberry and blackberry send up their shoots for the shears 

 in little more than a day, and if the pruner comes a little too late they look 

 down on him and nod assent as he confesses that his delay has cost him the 

 harvest. 



A day's delay gives the currant worms possession of their food, and every- 

 where neglect is followed by failure. Call to mind now the fruit gardens of 

 your farmer neighbors. Have they been profitable? Remember how many 

 times you have bought plants of this or that agent, believing for the moment 

 as you heard his soft words that you could succeed if you could once get the 

 right kind of plants. Is not your strawberry patch a mass of grass and 

 weeds? Do not the weeds and sprouts stand and wave their heads above the 

 snow in your raspberry and blackberry fields? If not, then you are the one 

 farmer among perhaps twenty who successfully raises small fruits for his own 

 table. 



It seems to me there is nothing much more discouraging than the 

 neglected fruit patches which one sees as he rides through the country. 

 What, then, should we advise the farmer to do in this case? First I would 

 say to the average farmer, who has not already found by trial that he is one 

 of the few that can succeed. If you are so situated that you can with a 

 reasonable degree of convenience and economy, purchase small fruit from a 

 gardener, do so by all means. Raise your sheep, cattle, hogs and colts, and 

 sell your surplus. Market your apples, your wheat, and whatever your exper- 

 ience as a farmer proves most profitable, and then with the money which one 

 hog, or calf, or something of the same value brings you will buy more and 

 better fruit for eating and preserving than you will be likely to secure from 

 your own garden, especially if you purchase your plants of the itinerant tree 

 agent. But if distance from market or other circumstances prevent this. 



