216 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



than luxuries, as soon as people find out the use of them, and how 

 surely and easily a supply can be provided. 



The cities are always first to be supplied with such things. Only 

 fifteen or twenty years ago there were barely strawberries enough in 

 the markets to supply the wealthy and extravagant for a few weeks, 

 and other berries were scarcely thought of. Now they have regular 

 fruit trains, bringing as high as fifty and a hundred car loads daily from 

 distant Southern States, prolonging the season several months. When 

 the cities get glutted, some of the surplus is re shipped to country 

 towns. Otherwise very few of the latter are well supplied, especially 

 if we except strawberries; not because they care less for them, but 

 because no one in the vicinity has happened to see the inducement to 

 fill the latent demand. 



Like many others, I carried on a nursery for ten or twelve years 

 without growing or selling any berry plants worth mentioning. There 

 was so little sale for them that it would hardly have paid, and, to tell the 

 whole truth, I had not found out the good of them myself, and hardly 

 knew how easily I could have grown them. When planting my orch- 

 ard, I determined to plant one and a half acres of berries, so as to have 

 plenty of some kind of fruit until the orchard should come in bearing. 

 When the first full crop ripened, the second year after planting, I could 

 see that I would have a surplus, and would have to hustle around to 

 find sale for them. I soon found sales so good that only by peremp- 

 tory refusal did we get any to put up for ourselves. I four-doubled my 

 planting, and planned for drying a surplus, if any, but we have only 

 got a scant supply ourselves by the same arbitrary method although 

 another party here claims to have grown as many as 1 did. I have 

 now at least 25 acres planted in berries, mostly last spring, and have 

 made all arrangements to make it 40 acres next spring, including buy- 

 ing and paying for what plants I am wanting, which will surely enable 

 me to ship some to neighboring towns two years from next summer, 

 and possibly dry or can a surplus. 



But the latter is a very distant contingency. The demand is more 

 likely to increase as fast as my planting. I have already frequently 

 sold one to three cases of six gallons to farmers living a distance from 

 town, and they could soon consume as much as the town people. If I 

 could carry them by the case into farmers' kitchens of this county, as 

 I can in town, I would risk 100 acres. Of course some of these custom- 

 ers will plant and grow their own berries as soon as they find out 

 more about them,- but it is very safe to trust their conservative, not to 

 say negligent tendencies, to not do so all at the same time. It is no 

 unusual thing for the blacksmith's mare and the shoemaker's wife to 



