CHAPTER I. Introduction. 



FRIEND ROOT wants me to write a little pamphlet on straw- 

 berry culture. He says : "Now, do not say you would rather 

 wait until you have had more experience." I should prefer to 

 wait two or three years longer, certainly ; but still it would be 

 true then the same as now, that I "know only in part." Even 

 of as simple a matter as growing strawberries, the wisest man 

 can continue learning as long as he lives. Friend Crawford, 

 who has spent his life among the strawberries, and is one of 

 the highest authorities in the world, remarked to me the other 

 day : " I am beginning to think that such and such treatment 

 (different from what has heretofore been considered best) is 

 what we want." Friend J. M. Smith, another noted berry- 

 grower of long experience, wrote me last fall that he made no 

 pretensions to being perfect in his line only to being one who 

 constantly tries to improve from year to year. 



The writer will doubtless say some things that he would 

 like to take back five years from now. But if he should wait 

 five years before writing this little book it would be the same. 

 The world is constantly moving on. I shall not attempt to 

 instruct old growers, nor those who raise berries on a large 

 scale. From them I have learned all I could, both on their 

 places and at our institutes, and from their writings. I have 

 picked out, to the best of my ability, what would be of the most 

 use to me, growing berries in a small way. This, I hope, may 

 be told so plainly as to help thousands of farmers and village 

 people, and particularly the young people, who have not had a 

 chance to learn much about the business. 



Mr. Charles A. Green says : "No instruction can be given 

 in fruit-growing or any other pursuit that will enable the inex- 

 perienced reader to begin largely, without being liable to meet 



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