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ness, and it is a great plant maker. In many ways it is an 

 ideal variety. 



When considering the problem of a suitable and suffi- 

 cient supply of berry pickers, at this time of the year, many 

 of you can now recall some of your experiences in that line 

 and smile, luit when you are meeting the situation from day 

 to day in the berry picking season, it is a serious prol)lem. 

 We may envy those fruit growers in the older berry grow- 

 ing sections wiiere it is possible to secure a picking crew 

 who have been pickers year in and year out for along time, 

 and who look forward to that line of work for summer em- 

 ployment each season, but it is a serious problem for one try- 

 ing to start in berry growing in Massachusetts. Women, of 

 course, make the most satisfactory pickers. They have a 

 natural care and neatness about all their work which is de- 

 sirable, and if you can get a crew composed wholly of older 

 girls and women, I think you have an ideal picking crew. 

 If you attempt to' carry on a large business you may find it 

 necessary to bring help from the city and establish them on 

 the farm in a tent or camp scheme. It is desirable to have 

 i). large picking crew available at all times, especially in 

 threatening weather. I think berry picking is a serious 

 problem and one which you need to study or weigh very 

 carefully before undertaking to engage in or even expand 

 a business already under way. Harvesting raspberries is of 

 course a more serious problem than harvesting currants, 

 from the necessity of doing the picking promptly and at the 

 right time. In that connection, I believe one who is grow- 

 ing a wide line of berries and whp can offer to his pickers 

 employment for a long time, as through the strawberry sea- 

 son and beyond, has a much better chance than one who is 

 trying to command labor for the harvesting of a single fruit. 

 The question of a good market for raspberries is not a 

 serious one. I believe that our best markets are to be found 

 in our cities and towns, perhaps other than Boston for a fair 

 supply appears to reach the latter market. The Hudson 



