192 IROQUOIS COUNTY, ILLINOIS. 



" matted rows " and liill culture. Without arguing the points 

 I will simply poll my vote for rows every time. 



All strawberry growers agree that this plant requires 

 enormous quantities of water to grow successfully. I prefer 

 to discuss the subject by stating actual experience. 



The first successful strawberry grower in this locality re- 

 sided about six miles from the railroad. A farmer's wife put 

 out about one-quarter of an acre, and succeeded so well 

 that she increased to one acre. This was about fifteen years 

 ago. The result in this case was a fine new house and com- 

 modious barn, paid for almost entirely with strawberries in 

 about five years. 



The next example was a dentist, who, having a large lot 

 in town, planted out about an acre. The land was wet and 

 sandy ; about one-half of the plants were drowned, but the 

 other half astonished the natives. From less tlian half an 

 acre, he sold 110 bushels of strawberries at an average of $10 

 per bushel — over $1,100. 



This gave an impetus to the business, and almost every 

 one who had a spare rod of ground set it to strawberries, until 

 there were about 200 acres of this crop in this village. In 1875 

 I procured seven car-loads of box stuff, in the flat, to ship the 

 fruit in, and about 350,000 quart boxes and 12,000 cases, or 

 crates, to put them in. 



The rainy season injured the crop seriously, and the hard 

 times so depressed prices that very many plowed up their 

 patches, and at present there is less than half the former 

 amount of land devoted to the crop. 



It has been demonstrated beyond a doubt that all land is 

 not suited to this business, and that with that, as Avith other 

 crops, it requires work, and work done at the right time. One 

 of our most successful growers had a lot of about two-thirds 

 of an acre of sandy land that had been richly manured and 

 planted in garden stuff for years. Tills lot produced nearly 

 one hundred bushels per crop for several successive years. He 

 was so pleased that he rented three acres, set out and culti- 

 vated them thorougly. At harvest his first picking yielded 



