50 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1897. 



from lower branches to pay for the mulch ; it is broken up by pickers 

 tramping, and worked into soil in fall when covering the canes, 

 supplying vegetable matter to take place of farm manure, if any 

 is needed in the soil. When a piece has nearly run out, apply good 

 dressing of best fertilizer you can buy, early in spring as possible, 

 and treat all new growth as weeds that season. In this way I have 

 grown a good farewell crop. The Black Raspberries will not winter 

 with me without protection, so I have given them up. I tried Doo- 

 little, Gregg, Ada, Carman, Ohio, Earhart, etc. Have had of Red 

 Turner, Shaffer, Marlboro, Hamsell, and others, but found none equal 

 to Cuthbert, both red and yellow ; berries are large, fine, and good 

 flavor. I have picked them Saturday morning, kept them over to 

 Monday and shipped them 160 miles, and they arrived in condition 

 to sell for sixteen cents per quart, wholesale, past season. But this 

 could not be done, raised in hedge-rows and on farm manure, or 

 with irrigation. Yellow or white fruit can be sold in small quantities 

 only, and requires great care in picking and handling — about one to 

 five or six of the reds. There is no fruit that will pay better for 

 neat and honest packing than strawberries and raspberries, and it is 

 for our interest that every grower ship his fruit to market in best 

 possible shape. When market is full of soft dirty fruit, the very 

 best sells slow, at low prices. The business man is asked why he did 

 not send home some berries for tea ; he replies : " Berries were poor 

 and soft to-day." " But were there no nice ones?" and he replies: 

 "Well, yes ; but I saw so much trash it took away my appetite for the 

 best," etc. Fruit should run uniform, through the basket, and through 

 the season. A gentleman from a neighboring city while purchasing 

 some strawberries from a dealer in Pittsfield, said to the dealer, those 

 are fine berries, I can occasionally get as nice at home, but am not 

 always sure of them ; the dealer replied that he had not received a 

 crate of soft or dirty fruit from that grower for ten years, and he 

 could guarantee just such the season through ; thereupon the gentle- 

 man ordered six boxes sent him by express three times a week for a 

 whole season (eighteen quart-boxes a week) . Passing through Bos- 

 ton markets I noticed some neatly put up fruit, at one of the best 

 stands in New Faneuil Hall market ; I said to the dealer : "There must 

 be money in that fruit for you ; " he smiled, and replied : " Well it is 

 fine fruit and nicely put up. I always give it the preference, for I 

 can depend on it ; if grower telegraphs a shipment made, I sometimes 

 sell it all before it reaches me. There is not so very much money in 

 it for me, but I like to see it in front of my store. I consider it an 



