RISE OF COMMERCIAL CULTURE 47 



John Knox claimed an average yield of 300 bushels an 

 acre. In 1860 he said, "Some varieties, the past season, 

 yielded as high as 600 bushels per acre/' ^ We might 

 be inclined to doubt these assertions, were they not sup- 

 ported by unimpeachable authority, n Evidently Thomas 

 Meehan, editor of the Gardeners^ Monthly, and a most 

 conservative horticulturist, was carried away by what he 

 saw at the Knox Fruit Farm, for he wrote, "The size of 

 these berries was the largest that anyone ever saw, and 

 might easily be mistaken by a near-sighted observer for 

 tomatoes. While I left strawberries selling in Philadel- 

 phia at ten cents per quart, and hardly salable at that, they 

 were being shipped from here to all parts of the East for 

 SI. 00 per quart for the first choice, and fifty cents for all 

 that were left." Ten years later The Horticulturist re- 

 ported : 2 " Rev. John Knox of Pittsburgh succeeded in 

 making his land devoted to the Jucunda strawberry pay 

 from SI 200 to SI 500 an acre, and frequently sold fancy 

 berries at the rate of one dollar per quart. These quart 

 baskets often held but eighteen berries. From two 

 and one half acres last year, he realized S3600 net. 

 He estimated his cost of production as about S200 an 

 acre." 



Most of the Knox strawberries were an imported 

 variety of which he had lost the label, so he called it 

 " Knoxes 700." Being a nurseryman, as well as a straw- 

 berry grower and preacher, John Knox was not averse 

 to turning a thrifty penny, as we learn from the aggrieved 

 William Parry, — himself a nurseryman : " For several 

 years he refused to sell any of his stock of Knoxes 700 

 until he had a very large quantity propagated. During 



^ Country Gentleman, 1861, p. 126. 

 2 The Horticulturist, 1871, p. 210. 



