No. 6. Department op agriculture. 597 



somewhat, atid I always had a desire to have more blackberries. 

 Once in a while you see a patch thoroughly healthy, paying three or 

 five hundred dollars an acre. You go home admiring that patch, 

 and you think you want some. A few years ago I actually bought 

 a poor, old farm, with the idea of planting it in blackberries, but 

 after getting it, I started to put out a peach 01 chard, and Avhen I 

 got the jjeach orchard all out, there wasn't an acre left for black- 

 berries. 1 haven't trusted myself since then to buy any more black- 

 berry land. 



Iv'ow, as for raspberries; that is a nice crop, a crop that pays" 

 well, and I hope to plant more of them. In our section Ave raise the 

 Welsh. Itis a productive, hardy variety that yields well and is a 

 good shipper. It is a local variety, and our berry men are almost 

 exclusively sticking to that one variety. It just satisfies us. 



Now, for gooseberries, A few years ago they passed a pure 

 food law that meant where they served a syrup in soda water foun- 

 tains, it must be pure fruit juice, and the gooseberries being sour, 

 are exactly the kind of fruit they wanted, and right away the price 

 of gooseberries went up, and the men who were lucky enough to 

 own a gooseberry patch of even a few acres, had a bonanza. The 

 men of our neighborhood that had gooseberry patches were the 

 first to own automobiles. Two or three years ago I got close enough 

 to one of them to get him to tell me just what he got for his goose- 

 berries. He had two acres, and they netted him |!2,G0U. The future 

 of the gooseberry is something we aie not quite sure of. Our only 

 market is the canners. They take the juice out. How soon they 

 will be supplied we cannot tell. The price is still very high. Each 

 year we expect it to drop a little, but it don't, and they are still reap- 

 ing wonderful profits from gooseberries. It may be supplied next 

 year or year after, but the rate they are returning per acre is simply 

 astounding. 



Question : How long does it take to raise them ? 



MR. ROBERTS: Oh, they get right to business; bear some sec- 

 ond 3^ear; in three or four years get to their height. They are very 

 easily raised, easily gathered. You have a couple of weeks to mar- 

 ket them in. It is one of the ideal crops. The canneis are the 

 only market and when they get an oversupply, they will put the 

 price down. 



Question: What variety did you use? 



MR. ROBERTS: Houghton and Downing. The canners want 

 a sour berry. The Downing is not quite sour enough, but if you 

 have the Houghton too, they will take a lot of them. The ones 

 that bring in the dollars and cents are the Houghton and Downing. 

 You can sell them by the car load as fast you can produce them. 

 The canners have not been supplied. You could sell them if you 

 had them in quantities. 



Question : You would have to ship them away from these markets 

 here? 



MR. ROBERTS: It is no further from Pittsburg to Baltimore 

 than it is from our section of Jersey. I cannot guarantee the future 



