140 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



but one crop, this expense has to be kept up each year, although leaving the 

 land in fine condition for other crops. Raspberries and currants cost us about 

 175 per acre the first year, while the manure and cultivation of future years 

 costs from $30 to §40 per acre. 



Strawberries are mostly grown in matted rows three and a half to four feet 

 apart, although the best cultivators are slowly adopting the hill and narrow 

 row systems. Raspberries, both red and black, are grown largely in hedgerows, 

 six to seven feet apart, and the plants well pinched down to two and a half to 

 three feet. This is the general practice, yet those making the most profit out 

 of their fruit plant in hills five to six feet apart each way, and tie to stakes five 

 feet high. 



Blackberries are not as yet planted to any great extent for market, the 

 earlier varieties requiring winter protection, and the later ones ripening too 

 late to sell at paying prices in competition with the wild ones from the woods, 

 and peaches from Delaware, and yet the owner of one acre of Snyders near 

 Springfield, Mass., told me last spring that the fruit from that acre in 1885 

 paid for 560 bushels of shelled corn delivered in his barn. 



The cultivation of currants as a field crop has been sadly neglected. Being 

 personally acquainted with most of the leading fruit farms in New England, I do 

 not know of 'Z5 acres of currants in all, and it is safe to say that 100 acres would be a 

 liberal estimate for all that are cultivated in New England, our markets being 

 mostly supplied with this fruit from New York state. 



Gooseberries are grown only in limited quantities and the same can be said 

 of grapes. Except a very small section in eastern Massachusetts and south- 

 western Connecticut, and vet tons upon tons of them are brought in from New 

 York State all the fall. Why this branch of our business is so sadly neglected 

 I cannot say, for nearly all varieties succeed well in Connecticut, Rhode Island 

 and eastern Massachusetts, and the earlier ones all do well in the northern 

 portions of New England. 



In marketing strawberries, blackcap raspberries, blackberries, currants 

 and gooseberries, the American square quart basket is used in the 32- 

 quart Delaware crate, which is returnable. Crates kept in good repair and 

 well painted are used year after year, while the baskets are used till soiled unfit 

 for use, according to the taste and neatness of the growers, some using only 

 white, clean baskets, while others are satisfied to use anything that will hold a 

 quart of berries. Within the last few years a few of us have had made 

 an improved crate that is four inches higher than the old one, with a rack 

 at each end, to hold up the trays that sustain the baskets. This extra 

 height allows us to fill our baskets heaping full of fine fruit, and place them 

 on the market without the least crushing, and being in snowy white baskets, 

 made of poplar wood (the whitest we can get), the fruit shows off to the best 

 possible advantage, and sells for the highest prices, often from two to three 

 cents more per quart than it would if put on the market in the old way, or 

 in the unsightly square box and tight case as used at the West. Red rasp- 

 berries are mostly marketed in pint or half-pint round Beecher baskets, keep- 

 ing best and commanding highest prices in the smaller baskets. 



As to profits of the business, we have the advantage over any other sec- 

 tion of the country, of having small manufacturing towns and villages scat- 

 tered all about, not more than ten or fifteen miles apart, and often much less, 

 furnishing a home market for most all our products, delivering with our own 

 teams, and selling either directly to consumers, or to the retail dealers, thus 

 avoiding all cost of railway transportation, and saving commissions, cartage, 



