editor's table. 



of land planted in strawberries, and producing scarcely less than hcenty thousand bushels. 

 A portion of the ground is not in bearing, being newly planted this spring. During the 

 height of the picking season (which lasts some two to three weeks), about twelve hundred 

 hands are constantly picking. About forty two-horse wagons are constantly running to 

 Baltimore and the Philadelphia Steamboat Landing, making two loads each, or eighty loads 

 a day, and taking away, daily, fifty thousand quart boxes of the berries, or about fifteen 

 hundred bushels. 



"Of this large business, more than one-half is done by four persons: Mr. Rezen Ham- 

 mond, has about one hundred acres in bearing ; Mr. Crisi), about eighty acres ; Mr. Joseph 

 Bryan, about eighty ; Mr. William Linthicum, about fifty acres — making more than three 

 hundred. We found, both at Jlr. Haramond's and Mr. Bryan's, some two hundred hands 

 picking. Mr. Richard Cromwell, and others, have crops of twenty-five or thirty acres, their 

 cultivation being more divided between this and other crops. 



" The method of management is, to plant the runners in spring, as soon as the ground is 

 in working order, on ridges thrown up at a distance of four feet, and about eighteen inches 

 apart on the ridge. They are kept well worked till about August, by which time the run- 

 ners are taking possession of the ridge. They come 'into full bearing the following season, 

 and continue for one or two seasons longer, according to circumstances ; usually they are 

 left in bearing about three seasons. Sometimes the clover and other grasses take posses- 

 sion of the ground to such an extent, that it is expedient to return to a cleansing crop 

 after the second year. Mr. Hammond does not manure for his strawberries. The several 

 cleansing crops are well matured in the hill with stable manure, street manure, &c. Manur- 

 ing for the crop, he thinks, brings in the clovers too rapidly. The yield, per acre, is about 

 an average of a thousand quarts, and the net price it is difficult to determine. The ex- 

 penses attending the business are large. Mr. Hammond requires for getting his crop to 

 market, six two-horse wagons, each team worth at least four hundred and fifty dollars, and 

 six hundred chests, with boxes, worth three and a half dollars each. The picking costs a 

 cent and a half a quart, where the pickers furnish their own provisions, and a cent a quart 

 where the employer furnishes. The crop of this neighborhood goes mainly to the Philadel- 

 phia markets. The team is not to be charged exclusively to the strawberry crop, for they 

 do all the work of the farm." 



Black Prince Steawberky. — This is the earliest strawberry in England, and if so in 

 America, should be grown as a first crop. 



The Smythe Strawberry. — Rumors of new, good, and better strawberries, will ever be 

 the rule rather than the exception. It requires caution to handle the strawberry subject, 

 there are so many interested in the introduction of new varieties. One friend writes to 

 caution us how we commend this or that fruit, and reads us quite a lecture for telling our 

 readers that we prefer the Marilandica to any we have heretofore known. He does not 

 even intimate that he has seen this fruit ; now we have, and, moreover, having no interest 

 whatever iu anything that is for sale, we can afford to be impartial, and express a free and 

 honest opinion. But this is not the theme we set out upon. 



A valued friend (William N. White, of Athens, Georgia) gives us a pleasant gossip about 

 a new berry. He says : " Our two years' wonder in this fruit is what we call, provision- 

 ally, the Smythe Strawberry, a hermaphrodite variety which came into bearing last year. 

 It was brought by a Georgian lady from England, three or four years since. She shared 

 h«r plants with two friends, one of whom (Mrs. Smythe) alone succeeded in saving three 

 plants, and a modest-sized bed came into fruit last season. It was so productive as 

 as excellent, that all who saw it were astonished ; and I procured a few plants, last 



