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264 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
his beautiful paper of the words of an old song that used to be sung 
while I was a boy: 
“Whistle and hoe, sing as you go, 
Shorten the row by the songs you know.” 
You will take more interest in thinking of those beautiful things 
that Mr. Owen has quoted. All through life we should be im- 
pressed with the fact that drudgery is doing that kind of work that 
we take no interest in. The work may be twice as hard, but if we 
take an interest in what we are doing it will be a continual source 
of joy to us. Now those boys of the university never complain 
about the hard work of rowing or kicking football or things of that 
kind that demand their utmost strength and powers of endurance, 
but if they are required to do something over and over again, that 
as soon as it is done requires to be done once more, something that 
they take no interest in, but set to them as a kind of a stint, some- 
thing like washing dishes on the part of the women friends, it would 
be drudgery, drudgery all the time. 
THE PROFITS OF BLACKBERRY CULTURE. 
W. S. WIDMOYER, DRESBACH. 
After a careful study of the subject and of my books, I am tempted to 
say the profits of blackberry culture in Minnesota are a myth, or, at any 
rate, very uncertain. The past season we expected to make quite a sum out 
of our one and one-half acre plantation, as we had laid most of them down 
the fall before, while hardly any one else in this vicinity had done so; but, 
alas, the older half of the plantation were so badly used up that we dug 
them out entirely, while the younger canes looked very promising, especial- 
ly when in bloom, and until about half grown I never saw a better prospect 
for a crop, but in spite of all we did they commenced to dry up on the 
bushes and continued doing so all through the season, until there was only 
about one-third of a crop left to harvest. 
But in the face of all this we have taken extra pains in putting them 
down this season, covering them more than usual. 
While the prices received for blackberries last season were mostly good, 
we cannot figure out any profit in the undertaking, and from an experience 
of fourteen years I place the blackberry at the foot of the list of small fruits, 
as far as profits are concerned. 
Aside from two large crops, which sold for an average of eight cents per 
quart, and one light crop, which sold for two dollars per sixteen quart case 
(except two cases at $1.25 per case), I have found the profits of blackberry 
culture very small, and, taking it as a whole, I would say, very uncertain. 
A Good Old-Fashioned Bean.—If every one knew how vastly superior 
the Black Butter bean was in flayor to the wax beans now so popular they 
would plant no other variety. So far as my experience goes there is no vari- 
ety of wax bean that can compare to this in flavor. 
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