With the increased popularity of the gooseberry, Mas- 

 sachusetts growers should be alive to take advantage of the 

 possibilities of this crop, for its future is certainly assured. 

 Not only is it a profitable fruit to produce, but it is easily 

 grown, cared for and shipped. Indeed, no other fruit crop 

 except the cranberry can be so readily sent to market, for 

 in most cases it is sold green and hard. Its uses are largely 

 confined to preserving or as a cooked fruit, but with a better 

 knowledge of the varieties of the gooseberry its popularity 

 as a table fruit will become more and more apparent each 

 year. Like the currant, the profits of the gooseberry do 

 not come as quickly as in the case of the strawberry but 

 once established a plantation of gooseberries will last at 

 least twelve years and if thorough pruning and fertilizing 

 are practiced, twenty or even twenty-five years is not im- 

 common for gooseberry bushes to yield and be profitable. 

 Generally speaking fifteen hundred bushes can be set to 

 the acre and after four years these bushes should produce 

 from eight to ten quarts apiece or about three hundred and 

 fifty bushels per acre. The average wholesale price on 

 these should not be less than $2 per bushel thus yielding 

 in gross receipts obout $700 per acre, or a net profit of at 

 least $400. 



There is a great deal of doubt in my mind as to whether 

 or not the raspberry and blackberry are paying crops in 

 Massachusetts, and while I said that our soils and climate 

 are suited to small fruits these two species will have to be 

 eliminated. So many of our varieties are not perfectly 

 hardy that the crop seems bound to be an uncertain one. 

 To be sure there are localities where the winter does not 

 seem to effect the bushes badly and here provided that the 

 market conditions are right both of these crops can be 

 grown with profit; but I further believe that in order to 

 get the best results from the land both raspberries and 

 blackberries should be grown either in connection with a 

 young fruit orchard or by planting the bushes 8x8 ft., and 

 growing some vegetable crop between them for at least two 

 years. Indeed this combining of small fruits with other 

 crops and particularly with young orchards is proving to 

 be one of the most profitable methods of growing them. 



With red raspberries the yield per acre cannot be 

 estimated higher than 2,006 qts. per acre ; selling as they do 

 for about .18 per quart the gross returns should be about 



