REPORTS OF LOCAL SOCIETIES. 363 



sends annually from many of her towns, daily, whole trains of straw- 

 berries in their season. There, in such localities as have gone largely 

 into growing small fruits, instead of three or four acres, many men 

 manage strawberry fields from fifty to one hundred acres. This busi- 

 ness certainly could not be maintained without good shipping facilities 

 and without adequate markets. By our present rude methods of ship- 

 ping, where perishable and delicate commodities are piled indiscrimi- 

 nately with all manner of rough freight, and all handled with the same 

 reckless haste, we are just as certain of loss when we place our prop- 

 erty in the hands of our common carriers as we would be if we placed 

 it in the direct front of a double distilled cyclone. Better as we are 

 now situated gather only our best fruits, give full rounded measure, 

 get the best prices obtainable and when we cannot realize prices suffi- 

 cient to pay something over the cost of growing and marketing, let the 

 remainder stay on the vines to enrich the land for the next year's crop. 

 Where such valuable and desirable crops can be grown in such pro- 

 fusion, and where the soil and climate have been proven to be so lav- 

 ish in return as ours of this portion of the west, we need have no fear 

 but that the thousand who need and cannot produce what we now waste, 

 will some day near at hand open our doors with gold for our wares. 

 Then, too, will canning factories be established. Larger and other 

 towns will be built in the land. By the free use of healthful and appe- 

 tizing berries in their season, a habit will be formed for the more gen- 

 eral use of them, thus with the growth and increase of large supplies 

 will come new and large demands until we will be permitted to look 

 back on what we are now doing as baby work in comparison with the 

 great enterprises that lie just ahead in that near future when our re- 

 sources are properly advertised. 



