RISE OF COMMERCIAL CULTURE 65 



fruit growers of that neighborhood planted small fields of 

 Wilson.^ The results were so encouraging that by 1865 

 there was a considerable acreage, and it was reported : 

 "The average yield per acre was about 70 bushels, for 

 which the growers received $5.00 per bushel nett, that 

 is, after deducting freight to Chicago, commission, etc., 

 making the snug little profit of $350 per acre." ^ Steamers 

 left Benton Harbor about nine o'clock at night, reaching 

 Chicago before daylight, delivering the fruit " fresh and un- 

 bruised, having suffered no jolts, as would be the case had 

 it been shipped by the railroad.'' According to the St. 

 Joseph Herald for 1871, 30,000 bushels had been shipped 

 to Chicago that year up to June 15 and the average price 

 was $3.00 a bushel. The total movement from St. 

 Joseph in 1782 was 24,878 bushels, with an average net 

 return of twelve cents per quart.^ By 1877 Berrien 

 County shipped to Chicago 128,840 one-half bushel crates, 

 while large quantities were marketed elsewhere by rail.^ 

 This county has maintained its prominence in strawberry 

 production. 



Illinois. — An important strawberry territory along the 

 line of the Illinois Central Railroad came to the front 

 at about the same time as Berrien County, Michigan. 

 B. F. Smith, then a baggage-man on this railroad, tells 

 of these early days : " It was about the third of May, 

 1860, that I received into the baggage car of the Illinois 

 Central Railroad the first package of strawberries that 

 was raised in southern Illinois for the Chicago market. 

 It consisted of a small, flat-goods box that held from two 



1 Kept. Mich. State Bd. Agr., 1879, p. 129; also Proc. Mich. 

 Hort. Soe. 1888, p. 16. 



2 The Cultivator, 1865, p. 271. 



3 The Horticulturist, 1872, p. 58. 



4 Proc. Amer. Pom. Soc, 1879, p. 109. 



