52 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1897. 



tion, if begun early as possible, is usually suflicient to carry the crop 

 through on my soil. Thus we save much of the moisture stored 

 during the winter, which is needed to work on the fertilizers used, 

 and make the soup for the plants to take up iu their growth ; working 

 the soil creates it, and raises the temperature ; this also aids decora- 

 position or hastens it, making plant and food available. Nearby or 

 home markets are usually best, as our Saturday fruit, and that some- 

 times picked too damp to carry well, can be disposed of to better 

 advantage; this helps the average, and we are able to do better than 

 those on cheap lands with the cheap Italian labor in Jersey and Dela- 

 ware. We are told there are 1000 known fruit insects ; some of these 

 attack the blackberry, also come rust, leaf-blight, and nutgall on the 

 roots, etc. Agawam is not as subject to cane rust as Snyder and 

 some others. JMay 1st I sprayed the canes with Bordeaux, made same 

 as for strawberries, and again as they began to blossom. I think it 

 was a benefit, as I saw no cane rust this season, and the foliage was 

 much better than years previous. We must have good foliage on 

 blackberries to obtain juicy and good flavored fruit of largest size. 



There is a growing demand for gooseberries, but the fruit is mostly 

 sold green. It grows very slowly. I treat them same as currants 

 and get about same price per quart, wholesale. I prefer Red Jacket 

 to any variety I have tried, as it is large showy fruit and productive, 

 a more stocky grower than Smith's Improved, or Downing, here, and 

 does not mildew. 



Some of us can look back over the years and see the row of old 

 currant bushes, as they grew beside the garden wall, and remember 

 the well-browned turnovers, or larger pies, made by our grandmothers 

 from their half-grown fruit, sometimes mixing them with the home 

 dried apples that had been strung and dried around the kitchen the 

 previous winter. Also how, later in the season, as we came from the 

 hayfield with scythe on our shoulder, dry and hot, we would reach 

 over the wall or through the fence and rake off some of the well-ripened 

 fruit to quench our thirst and sharpen the appetite for dinner. 



Those bushes always bore a good crop of small rich fruit of good 

 flavor. They received no trimming, and scarcely any fertilizer or 

 cultivation, except that given them by the chickens that gathered 

 under their shade to scratch and wallow during the heat of the day. 



This was before the chipper of the currant worm was so destructive. 

 Few currants were then sold in the smaller cities and towns compared 

 to the present. An old fruit-grower laughed at me for setting one-half 

 acre fifteen years ago, and said I would be sour enough trying to sell 



