70 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



cultivation or growing wild in every country in the world. No 

 other group of either hardy or tropical plants can make this claim. 

 We have these small fruits in northern countries like Sweden and 

 Norway, in the mountains of the Tropics, in the islands of the 

 Pacific, in Australia, in China and Japan; and, in fact, everywhere 

 that man has cultivated the soil we find them always a source 

 of pleasure with their beautiful appearance and delicious flavors. 



Here in the United States, where our climate gives us a greater 

 range than most other countries in which to cultivate small fruits, we 

 find all species growing under varying conditions. You will hardly 

 see a garden in the country without a variety of small fruits. Even 

 the landscape artists are using some of them in order to produce 

 certain effects of color and beauty, as in the case of the ornamental 

 raspberries which are often used to cover bare and rocky hillsides. 



The ease with which small fruits lend themselves to cultivation, 

 the quick returns, the economy of space, and the small amount of 

 care required are all great factors in their popularity. 



So many of us are moving from place to place that we cannot 

 afford to wait six or eight years for the pear and apple or even four 

 years for the plum and peach to reach their perfection, but we 

 must have some fruit growing and preferably those that give quick 

 returns. So here we look to the small fruit to fill a place that is 

 entirely unique in the field of horticulture. 



To the amateur, that is the man with a garden which he culti- 

 vates for recreation, these small fruits are indispensable not only 

 as a source of supply but as a means by which he is induced to 

 work out in the open both morning and evening and fill his lungs 

 Avith God's pure fresh air. Then from an economic standpoint the 

 amateur fruit grower is at an advantage for no one can afford to 

 buy fruit who has land enough to grow it upon. 



Small fruit growing for amateurs is yet in its infancy here in New 

 England. We find that while a man may spend thousands of dol- 

 lars vipon greenhouses for flowers and vegetables, he will hardly 

 grow enough strawberries, raspberries, etc., for his own table. And 

 while gardeners are encouraged to grow and exhibit fine plants and 

 beautiful flowers, there seems to be little inducement held out for 

 them to grow fine specimens of fruit. It is believed that some day 

 on our larger private estates we shall see the fruit gardener in his 



