SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 197 



Can it be proved that growing the same quantities of fruits on smaller 

 areas of land will reduce their cost? I think it can. Let us first take 

 strawberries, the fruit in which the grower now sinks the most money. We 

 will say that 200 bushels per acre is a possible crop of strawberries. I have 

 known much larger crops grown, but we will take 200 bushels for our dem- 

 onstration. I do not believe that the average yield, in the way they are gen- 

 erally grown, is over fifty bushels per acre. Suppose that a grower of straw- 

 berries cultivates so as to grow on one acre what he now grows on four, does 

 any intelligent horticulturist believe that the berries would cost so much per 

 •quart? 



To start with, the rent of three acres would be saved. At a low estimate 

 this would amount to $24 in the cost of 200 bushels. It would neither re- 

 quire the same amount of maure or labor to grow 200 bushels on one acre 

 that it would on four acres — one-half of each would be a liberal allowance. If 

 ~20 two-horse loads of barnyard manure to the acre is generally applied under 

 the present system, I think forty loads would answer under the approved 

 system, thus saving forty loads, worth $40, in the 200 bushels. 



The cultivator of one acre would probably plow deeper, and pulverize 

 much finer, expending about as much labor in preparing the one acre for 

 planting as the farmer does in preparing four acres. Only one-fourth the 

 number of plants, however, would be required. If we plant three feet by 

 eighteen inches it would take 9,680 plants to set one acre — three times the 

 number, or 29,040 would be saved. At $2.50 per thousand, these would 

 amount to $72.60. In planting the strawberries I suppose that about one- 

 half the time would be expended on the one acre that is ordinarily devoted 

 •on large plantations, to four acres, and about half the labor in cultivating, 

 hoeing, weeding, and clipping runners. It is not practicable to make a very 

 close estimate of the value of the labor saved, as different tracts of land dif- 

 fer so much in the amount of labor required to keep them clean and mellow, 

 and the same grounds require so much more labor in a wet than in a dry 

 season. Taking an average of seasons, we will say that it would take four 

 days' work to clean an acre of the larger plantation, and that it would need 

 cleaning four times before the first crop is grown. That would be sixty-four 

 days for four acres, which at $1.50 per day would amount to $96. It would 

 be fair to estimate that half of the $48 would be saved in labor, by our plan 

 of intensive culture. 



When we come to the picking I think all will agree that it would cost not 

 more than half as much to pick 200 bushels from one acre as from four. If 

 it costs two cents per quart for picking, on the larger plot, it could be done 

 for one cent on the smaller, and this saving of one cent per quart, or $64 on 

 200 bushels, would afford a moderate profit on an acre. We have figured 

 out savings as follows: 



In rent of land $24 00 



In manure _ 40 00 



In plants _. 72 60 



In culture... 48 00 



In picking 64 00 



Total §248 60 



This in 200 bushels, or nearly four cents per quart. If the agricultural 

 strawberry grower comes out about even by growing strawberries by farmers' 



