30 ANNUA!. REPORT 



fodder, brush, or anything most convenient. Where they are 

 put down in this way, the blackberry has proved to be a successful 

 crop to raise in Minnesota. I have never heard of a single failure. 

 It is very prolific; its fruit conies at a time when our Southern 

 friends are enjoying the luxury of peaches, and which, when 

 they send up here, smell so strong of money that we can not af- 

 ford to enjoy very many of them. 



It is said that a crop of blackberries may be covered at a cost 

 of from five to eight dollars per acre and that they can be grown 

 about as cheaply as an acre of corn. The profit upon an acre of 

 the fruit would be great, because the lowest prices we could ex- 

 pect to get would be, say, eight to ten cents a quart, and the 

 profits should amount to from two to four hundred dollars per 

 acre; therefore it must be a crop that will pay commercial gar- 

 deners to grow. It will pay them, at least until so many get to 

 raising them as to bring down the price. 



MARK YOUR BOXES. 



An important matter in growing fruit is to mark your boxes, 

 so that when a person gets a quart of your berries, he will want 

 to buy of you again. One thing that has hurt the market gar- 

 deners and the fruit dealers is, that tbey have not stood up to 

 law and reason. They allow a man to come into the market, 

 whom you might call a "shark," or a "pirate" (that is a better 

 name), who will take the berries that are shipped in from a dis- 

 tance and place them in boxes among the berries that you have 

 brought in to sell, with your name on the boxes. The customer 

 is thus imposed upon, and it hurts your reputation the whole 

 season. There ought to be a pretty severe penalty attached for 

 a man's using his neighber's boxes without his consent. 



Another thing is, a great many dealers purchase good, honest 

 quarts in these boxes, and immediately dump the berries out 

 and measure them in quart cups. Now, I will venture there 

 isn't a legal quart cup in use in Minneapolis or St. Paul that 

 will hold the quantity of berries contained in a legal strawberry 

 box. 



These are two things that should be changed: The taking of 

 poor berries to market, and letting them be sold inhonest men's 

 boxes, and the shoveling them up with a shingle into quart cups; 

 both tend to bring the price of strawberries down; that is to say, 

 the retail dealer gets his berries a great deal cheaper, and the 



