77 



generally the labor problem is found to be not quite so 

 serious. 



A good market does not necessarily mean that you 

 have to go to the large cities to dispose of your products 

 for now many of our fruit growers are realizing that a home 

 market is much better and returns a greater profit than is 

 made by sending the fruit to the larger and more congested 

 centers. Last year we had a good example of this in the 

 overstocking of the Boston market with strawberries while 

 many of the smaller towns and cities had to take berries 

 which had been sent to Boston from their localities and 

 then reshipped to them. Of course the fruit was hardly fit 

 to use and the small prices realized raised the cry that the 

 strawberry crop was unprofitable. While all this was going 

 on about Boston I know of a man who was quietly supplying 

 lis local market with strawberries which he was selling for 

 25 cents a quart while it was hard to get 5 cents a quart in 

 Boston for as good berries. Keep in mind your home market 

 and work to supply it with the very best products you are 

 capable of raising. 



I have stated that in order to get profits or to increase 

 our profits in small fruit growing we have got to change 

 some of our methods. Let us consider for a moment one of 

 these possible changes. 



Strawberries as you all know have the last forty years 

 been grown in the matted row system planting the rows 

 3 1-2 or 4 feet ai>art and the plants from 12 to 20 inches 

 apart in the row, thus using from six to eight thousand 

 plants per acre. An acre set in this way costs all the way 

 from $55.00 to $100.00 according to various conditions. 



Whether you bought your plants or raised them. 



What fertilizer you used. 



What you have to pay for labor, besides a few minor de- 

 tails. 



Now if a man can set out an acre of strawberries for 

 $35.00 or $50.00 he is very often tempted to set all the acre- 

 age that he can, that is, to spread himself out just as much as 

 possible, believing that there is money in mere acres. What 

 follows ? Generally the four or five acres planted in this way 

 are skimmed over with the least possible trouble. , The 

 cultivator is used on rare occasions, only when the weeds 

 threaten to entirely cover the plants ; hand hoeing and weed- 

 ing are done in the same careless way and the beds grow 



