1897.] ESSAYS. 47 



quart saved sometimes means the difference between a profit and a 

 loss in the business. Prices of the small fruits have been on the 

 decline for years, many thousand quarts have been sold the past 

 year for less than the cost of picking and marketing ; and there is no 

 certain prospect of a return to much higher prices in the near future. 

 Fruits may not have fallen more than other farm produce, but nine- 

 tenths of the drop in prices falls on the grower ; for labor, picking, 

 express or freight rates, etc., have not fallen in proportion, 

 and the commission merchant still lives under the old dispensation, 

 taking his one-tenth per cent, as rightful share. Therefore it be- 

 hooves us to make a desperate effort to reduce cost of production and 

 marketing. Anyone who now begins the culture of small fruits with- 

 out a careful study of these problems will be pretty sure to graduate 

 in the primary department, and two or three courses will convince him 

 that something beside muscle and fertilizer is required for success. I 

 cannot tell you just how to clear $1,000 per acre on strawberries, or any 

 other big stories ; it is not necessary, for there are plenty now in print. 

 When I began I saw several that I remembered, for small stories or 

 failures reach the printers. But I do not condemn all the catalogues, 

 as some contain a good deal of good instruction ; if they do strongly 

 recommend potash, it is not all lye they contain. Fruit growers are 

 the most unselfish men you can find as a rule, the most willing to give 

 instruction and the least afraid of honest competition. Perhaps the 

 best I can do is to state how I raised my last crop of strawberries. 

 Three years ago I purchased three acres of land ; having been ten 

 years in grass it was well run out, except spots that had well run into 

 quack grass ; it had received the manure from one cow, applied in lit- 

 tle garden spots each year till quack grass got so thick another piece 

 was used, etc. I bought ten cords of manure delivered on the lot 

 (for $40.00) ; this was evenly spread over three acres and the piece 

 planted to corn, potatoes and roots, mostly potatoes, where strawber- 

 ries were to be, using potato fertilizer in the drills. One-fourth acre 

 was so matted with quack roots that I did not plant it, but cultivated 

 once a week till August first and sowed to flat turnips. I dug three 

 hundred bushels of potatoes from one-fourth acre ; the crop no doubt 

 doubled by the quack grass, as I had to cultivate and hoe them twice 

 before the potatoes showed above groirnd, and cultivate once a week 

 until they were a foot high. I dug them the middle of August and 

 sowed the piece to bailey, and gave the quack grass a little more pun- 

 ishment after death, and kept the soil covered during the winter, and 

 the barley roots decaying kept it in good mechanical condition to 



