Reclaiming the Wilderness. 219 



liquor provision in his plan for peopling this place ; but, if so, it is thought 

 here that the world would gain by an extension of such selfishness. 



It is, however, the relations which this young and growing town sustains 

 to pomology and horticulture which will most interest the patrons of a 

 magazine like that for which this article is intended. The recent straw- 

 berry crop, some veiy general statistics of which the writer has already 

 given, ought to be a conclusive answer as to the adaptation of the soil here 

 for that delicious fruit. Hill-cultivation, with plants set three feet by twelve 

 or sixteen inches, is the most common method. The variety most popular, 

 indeed almost the only one grown largely for market, is Wilson's Albany. 

 No very full statistics as to the area planted, or the average yield per acre, 

 have yet been collected ; but from personal experience, and some few facts 

 gathered from others, there seems to be good reason to estimate the average 

 yield per acre this year at not less than seventy-five bushels, or twenty-four 

 hundred quarts. The writer's plantation, covering a little less than three 

 quarters of an acre, yielded slightly over this rate, with very little manure, 

 no mulching, no winter protection, and no cultivation after the runners 

 began to be firmly rooted. An acquaintance, who took more pains and 

 raised better berries, gathered four thousand three hundred and ninety-nine 

 quarts from an acre and three-fourths ; another picked four thousand quarts 

 from about the same area ; and still another, six hundred quarts from a 

 plat a hundred feet by a hundred, — something less than one-fourth of 

 an acre. Winter protection was very rarely attempted ; yet a near neighbor, 

 who tried it on eighty-four square rods of land, picked some sixty bushels 

 from his " patch," or at the rate of three thousand six hundred and forty- 

 eight quarts per acre. This crop was grown on a piece of " old " land, 

 very sandy, which old Jerseymen say has been in cultivation sixty years or 

 more. It had no special manuring, as the present owner only came into 

 possession of it in the spring of 1866; but the land had been well manured 

 for several previous seasons. The next best crop to this, that I have heard 

 of, was a yield of six thousand one hundred quarts from an acre and three- 

 fourths. About one hundred bushels of ashes were used on this crop. 

 There were two varieties, — Wilson and New-Jersey Scarlet ; and the owner 

 assures me, that, had the latter been as prolific as the former, he thinks he 

 could have marketed ten thousand quarts. 



