EARLY HISTORY 17 



and New York there was considerable progress in commer- 

 cial strawberry culture some years before the introduction 

 of the Hovey. Philadelphia then was a center of horti- 

 cultural interest, with a large body of enthusiastic am- 

 ateurs who did much to encourage the culture of the straw- 

 berry. As early as 1815, perhaps sooner, Anne Arundel 

 County, Maryland, began to grow strawberries for the 

 Baltimore and Philadelphia markets, laying the founda- 

 tion of the industry which now gives Maryland pre- 

 eminence in strawberry acreage. About 1830 the Horti- 

 cultural Society of Charleston, South Carolina, was a 

 center of amateur interest in strawberry culture, and 

 several interesting papers on this subject appear in its 

 proceedings. Cincinnati, then in the "far west," had 

 barely made a beginning in the industry, the magnitude of 

 which, a few years later roused the wonder and admiration 

 of the East. 



Yields and prices. Save in the neighborhood of Boston, 

 the methods were quite crude, and the results meager. A 

 correspondent of the American Farmer, in 1823, advanced 

 the opinion that strawberries should be left to grow up in 

 grass, since that is the way they grow in nature. The 

 same year a Maryland correspondent of this paper re- 

 ported his success in growing "two squares of strawberries, 

 each forty-five feet square, using the native strawberry 

 from the woods." The yield was so great that "a 

 single acre would produce the enormous quantity of 80 

 bushels." Feeling that this statement "might be con- 

 sidered by some as bordering upon the marvellous," he 

 called in "several gentlemen of high respectability" to 

 vouch for the truth of his assertions. 1 



The prices received in those days are likely to rouse the 



1 American Farmer, Dec. 26, 1823. 

 c 



