BLACKBERRIES BY THE TON 79 



grades them, and makes them up in cases for 

 export. The business organized on these lines 

 brings, in the aggregate, a substantial sum of 

 money to the peasantry of the district. 



Still more striking is the story that can be 

 told concerning blackberries. A ton of black- 

 berries, all picked from hedges in the fields or 

 along the country lanes, will appear a prodigious 

 quantity to the average householder, and a 

 record seemed, indeed, to have been reached a 

 few years ago, when 150 tons of blackberries 

 were exported from St. Malo to England. But 

 that figure is entirely overshadowed by the fact 

 that during the autumn of 1903 the total quan- 

 tity of blackberries sent from St. Malo to this 

 country was no less than 773 tons ! Even then 

 the supply was not equal to the demand, in 

 a season when fruit was exceptionally scarce. 

 One English dealer alone telegraphed to St. 

 Malo saying that he would take 200 tons of 

 blackberries, if he could get them. 



By what means are these hundreds of tons of 

 blackberries got together in this one particular 

 corner of Fiance ? There is no horticultural 

 syndicate there to promote the culture of black- 

 berries, or to organize the sale thereof; but 

 those said tons are collected and sent off all the 

 same, the persons chiefly concerned being women 



