68 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



reasonably early. In 1869 a committee of the Norfolk 

 Horticultural Society reported that 3,000,000 quarts of 

 strawberries were shipped from that port, two thirds or 

 three fifths of them being Wilson.^ In 1871, Nor- 

 folk "shipped 2,000,000 baskets of strawberries, two 

 thirds of which are Wilson's Albany ; " ^ and The Horti- 

 culturist added, " Now Norfolk sends 10,000 crates a week 

 by water, and 3000 a week by car, the fruit selling in New 

 York for about 20 cents a quart." ^ Those were golden 

 days for the Norfolk trucker. According to Purdy's 

 Small Fruit Recorder for 1871, "One man in Southamp- 

 ton county sold SI 0,000 worth of strawberries off of ten 

 acres, the buyer furnishing the baskets"; the price was 

 "only 25 to 30 cents per quart." If correctly quoted, 

 this man probably holds the record of profits from a field 

 of this size. 



After the Civil War the size of individual holdings in- 

 creased very rapidly. Before then the largest field 

 grown by one man did not exceed sixty acres; the big 

 fields were mostly in Anne Arundel County, Md. The 

 difficulty of securing pickers made it impracticable to 

 cultivate a greater acreage. At the close of the war many 

 negroes were no longer restricted to one plantation, but 

 were driven to the necessity, or opportunity, of seeking 

 work where it might be found. Berry picking offered an 

 inviting field ; the hours were short, the pay good, and the 

 opportunity for amusement unlimited. To a great army 

 of this floating labor, berry picking was a picnic, eagerly 

 anticipated and enthusiastically enjoyed. The great 

 berry and truck industry of Norfolk and other parts of 

 the South would not have been possible without free labor 



1 Proc. Amer. Pom. Soc, 1869, p. 139. 



2 Ibid., 1871, p. 61. 3 The Horticulturist, 1871, p. 259. 



