38 State HorticuUural Society. 



Arkansas as we have produced and prices, therefore, were largely regu- 

 lated by our neighbors who were first on the market. It some times 

 happens that there is an over supply in one district and a shortage in 

 another; some times one market is overloaded and another is empty. 

 Because of these accidents shall Ave decide that the supply is larger 

 than the demand ? Because one or two towns grow more berries than 

 can be conveniently handled, and losses result, shall the cry of a surplus 

 be allowed to hinder the development of our important interest ? 



There was an oversupply in the Van Buren district of berries that 

 were damaged by rains but there have been none too many fancy and 

 grade A berries, and not a car load of such berries has failed to pay a 

 profit. 



Before further considering the problem of supply and demand, in 

 justice to the situation an accouni should be made of the influence 

 exerted by the tw^o tremendous storms that visited the Van Buren 

 section the fifth and sixth days of the shipping season. Had no damage 

 been done by the storms every car load shipped from Van Buren would ' 

 have returned a profit to the growers. As it was the berries that were 

 picked immediately after the rains, the finest of the crop but for their 

 water-soaked condition, arrived in market soft and did not pay cost of 

 shipping. Good prices were received for the car load shipped before 

 the storms. We were in Van Buren the nights of these calamitous 

 downpours, and it really seemed, as the rain came in torrents, as the 

 hail was shot from nature's rapid-firing guns automatically by electricity 

 that filled the midnight sky with the blaze of noonday, that every berry 

 and plant would be driven into the ground. It was an anxious time for 

 the OAvners of the 8,000 acres of berries that were so mercilessly pelted 

 and for the friends of these enterprising, hard working men who de- 

 pended upon their crop to pay last year's deficits. The berries did not 

 appear to have suffered nearly so badly as was feared. A number of 

 car loads were loaded and shipped the two days succeeding the storms, 

 but the berries did not pay charges. They were water-soaked and they 

 "fell down" on the way. Fully fifty car loads were shipped from Van 

 Buren the third or fourth day after these storms that swept over the 

 Boston mountains. The depression caused by putting so many soft 

 berries on the market affected prices the remainder of the season. Thus 



