RISE OF COMMERCIAL CULTURE 73 



vest this very large crop during such a short period. Be- 

 ginning about 1906, the acreage of strawberries in the 

 South generally, and in North Carolina especially, de- 

 creased considerably. 



The Gulf States and the lower Mississippi Valley. — The 

 market gardens of Mobile and New Orleans were famous 

 long before the coming of the railroads made it possible to 

 exchange their products for northern gold. The close 

 of the Civil War ushered in a period of railroad building 

 that opened new channels of trade between the North and 

 South. "On April 21, 1868, a carload of vegetables, in- 

 cluding sixty-four quarts of strawberries, were shipped 

 from Mobile to Chicago." ^ Mobile continued to ship a 

 few strawberries to the North for many years, mostly by 

 express, but the industry did not become prominent in 

 Alabama until after 1900. The first carload shipment 

 was in 1902, by the Castleberry Fruit Growers' Association 

 of Conecuh County. 



Although far south, Mississippi is a congenial home for 

 the wild strawberry. "Pioneers of Mississippi," says 

 W. H. McKay, "tell of the luxuriant and delicious wild 

 strawberries of by-gone years ; how they were accustomed 

 to have great water buckets full brought in from the 

 fields and prairies." Various points in Mississippi began 

 to ship strawberries to Chicago about 1870, mainly along 

 the line of the Illinois Central Railroad. By 1879 there 

 were seventy-five acres at Madison, and about 500 acres 

 altogether along the N. O. & St. L. R. R.^ J. F.' Merry, 

 of the Illinois Central Railroad, gives the follow^ing bit of 

 history concerning the development of the strawberry 

 industry of Louisiana: "The first shipment of straw- 



^ Country Gentleman, 1868, p. 349. 

 2 Proc. Amer. Pom. Soc, 1879, p. 130. 



