64 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



now began to realize that it had peculiar advantages for 

 the production of late strawberries. As recalled by D. T. 

 Mclnery, the industry began in 1863, when Morris Pierce 

 brought a few quarts of strawberries to Oswego, where 

 they were gazed at as a curiosity, and sold for one cent a 

 berry.^ The first shipments were made in 1866, by boat 

 to Watertown and Syracuse. In 1872 Oswego berries 

 were first expressed to New York, the charge being SI. 00 

 a forty-five quart crate ; in 1873 the first strawberry train 

 was started. By 1883 the movement amounted to 3000 

 crates, mostly to New York and Philadelphia, and the 

 boom days of the Osw^ego berry industry had begun. Very 

 high prices often were obtained for Oswego Atlantics, 

 S7.00 to S9.00 a crate were not uncommon. The acreage 

 increased rapidly until 1898; the output was 22,000 

 thirty-six quart crates in 1896 and 52,263 crates — nearly 

 2,000,000 quarts — in 1898, when over 1000 acres were 

 cultivated. This was the high-water mark ; the industry 

 declined rapidly after 1898. 



Michigan. — The most important extension of commer- 

 cial strawberry growing in the central states, after the in- 

 troduction of the Wilson, was stimulated by the demands 

 of the lusty young giant on the shore of Lake Michigan. 

 Growing with amazing rapidity, Chicago soon laid a wide 

 territory under tribute. The warm soils and climatic 

 advantages of the Lake Michigan shore "Fruit Belt" in 

 south-western Michigan, and the ease with which it could 

 be reached by boat, soon gave this region preeminence in 

 the culture of peaches and strawberries for the Chicago 

 market. The strawberry industry of Michigan began near 

 Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Berrien County. In 1861 

 T. W. Dunham, David Brown and several other pioneer 

 1 Bui. 189, N. Y. (CorneU) Exp. Sta. (1901), p. 135. 



