230 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



first season can be performed by one man and team, provided he 

 gives it all his time. As for the e.xpense ot labor performed in 

 preparing the ground, setting the plants and cultivation, that can 

 be easily calculated, as it only requires ordinary farm work mixed in 

 with good common sense and an hour's reading each day of some good 

 horticultural book or paper. I will say that a fair crop of strawberries, 

 with good culture on land well prepared to begin with, is about 

 5000 quarts per acre or 200 crates of twenty-four quarts each, which will 

 generally bring two dollars per crate on an average. Now wc have from 

 two acres 400 crates of strawberries, for our first crop, $800 — and from 

 two acres of raspberries, which we will estimate at one-third of a crop 

 from the first year's growth, or about thirty crates per acre, twenty-four 

 quarts each, worth $2.50 per crate, presuming that a large part of the 

 crop are early berries — $150. Now we have $950 for our gross proceeds, 

 the expense of picking, paying for boxes and crates will cost about $200, 

 add ten per cent commission for selling, making ninty-five dollars. We 

 have a total expense of $295 from the crop of four acres, which leaves a 

 balance of $655 to pay the expenses of putting in the crop, and first 

 year's cultivation; will not estimate anything from the one acre of black- 

 berries until the third year after setting. Now, aside from the above 

 estimate quite a revenue may be obtained from the sale of plants. This 

 estimate is made up on the presumption that we are situated near a good 

 market, and that the ground is well prepared and thoroughly cultivated 

 to begin with ; no time to be allowed for destroying dry goods boxes 

 with a jack knife. 



I have in my mind a gentleman in our own locality that purchased 

 a ten acre tract a few years since and started in the small fruit business, 

 and his experience was something like that of our Hon. Mr. Kimball's 

 experience in horticulture, as related by himself in his address of welcome 

 before our Society. 



Now from the second crop we should be able to obtain about three 

 times as much from the raspberry crop as from the first season, and we 

 can safely estimate at least $150 from the one acre of blackberries and 

 about the same results from the strawberries. In addition to the above 

 I will submit a brief report of our sales the past season : 



